Part 17 (2/2)
”Well, I can promise you that if I do, no one will ever find that cylinder,” I say-finally admitting for the first time, to anyone, that I have it.
Her eyes blaze with pure fury. ”And so the smarta.s.s returns. You think joking about your death is funny?”
I slide my hands to her hair. ”Now you need to stop talking. Right here, this moment, is about just that: the moment.”
”This moment won't erase the facts. This is bigger than you and me. I have to be a weapon if I can be.”
”But not another loss,” I declare. ”You give me the information. I risk myself. End of story.” She opens her mouth to argue and I silence her with a kiss, and I swear I can almost taste the blood I won't let be hers, almost hear the piercing scream of my mother's agony in my head. I cup Gia's head, deepening the connection between us. Needing again. Demanding. Taking. Relieved when she goes from stiff and unyielding to wildly responsive, her tongue stroking mine, her hands sliding under my s.h.i.+rt, her palms soft and warm. Her touch is somehow like a calm summer breeze on a hot Texas night and at the same time it's the fire that makes it hotter.
But Gia isn't calm. She's all over me-kissing me, touching me, possessive in her own right, as if she is trying to hold onto me beyond the moment.
In a rush of movement, I manage to undress us both, picking her up to carry her to the bed. We go down together, and I intend to be on top, but we end up side by side, staring at each other, and I'm lost all right, lost in the deep pools of torment in her eyes.
I grab her and s.h.i.+ft our bodies, pressing the thickness of my erection between her thighs. I tangle fingers in her hair and lead her gaze to mine. ”Gia.”
She leans in and kisses me, and there is a desperateness in her that I don't fully understand, but when she shoves on my chest, I let her push me to my back and climb on top. My gaze rakes over the view of her high b.r.e.a.s.t.s and pink, budded nipples. Her slender waist and curvy hips I grasp with my hands, anchoring her as she wastes no time, gripping me and sliding down my erection.
She takes all of me, in more ways than one, and I know that she doesn't know. I can't let her know. We've only known each other a short time. We're reacting to circ.u.mstances, to being alone, and being destined to stay that way. She feels she needs control. I've given it to her, allowing her to take the top position by way of demand.
But she surprises me when she leans forward, pressing her palms to my chest as she brings her cheek to mine and whispers, ”Alone isn't better.” It's gut wrenching.
I react instantly, one hand cupping the side of her face, flattening the other on her back, holding her to me. ”And right now, we aren't alone.”
She leans back and tries to look at me, but I don't let her. I force her lips to mine, licking into her mouth, breathing with her, drinking in the fear I sense in her, the desperation that is richer now, fuller in a way that can't be possible unless it's about pa.s.sion and how much we need each other in this place, at this time. I start to move, cupping her backside, lifting my hips. The kiss deepens, maybe because of me, maybe because of her. I don't know. I don't care. I just want her, and this, and that escape into oblivion that I look for in s.e.x and that she actually gives me. We become more frenzied, rougher in the way we drive our bodies together, and we can't kiss. She sits up, staring down at me, and her fear is gone, replaced by the burn of desire.
I watch her move, seduced by her body, her curves, the sway of her hips and the bounce of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-loving the way her head drops forward, her long dark brown hair draping her ivory skin, the way she can no longer sit up and lowers those tight little nipples to my chest, where they rest against the wall of dark blond hair there, her face nestled in my neck.
We ride out what becomes a storm of need, a burn that has to be sated, grinding our bodies together, the sounds of pleasure and heavy rasps of breathing taking on lives of their own. I cup her backside, caress her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tug roughly on her nipples. It seems to send her over the edge as she gasps, ”Chad.”
A moment later, her s.e.x tightens around the thick ridge of my erection, and it is heaven and h.e.l.l at once. I ache for the burn to become a rush of pleasure, a release, and I loathe it for the ending it's sure to become. And it does. Her body spasms and spasms some more, and I can do nothing but respond, pressing her down against me as I thrust upward. Once, twice, and then the explosion, the pleasure-the darkness of release that is eternal and not long enough-and then, too soon, the end.
Gia has already collapsed on top of me, both of us exhausted, sated. For a minute, maybe two, I just hold her, before rolling her to face me. We don't speak at first. I'm not sure either of us wants the return to reality, and with it, our battle. But finally, Gia ends the silence. ”Alone isn't better.”
G.o.d. This woman could make me forget why alone is better. I reach up, stroking hair from her eyes. ”Gia-”
The doorbell rings and I'm on my feet in an instant, tugging on my pants and grabbing my gun from the holster at the foot of the bed. I open the bedroom door to find Jared already at the door to the apartment. ”Delivery,” I hear from the hallway before Jared says, ”Yes. We were expecting you.”
I lean on the doorframe, willing the adrenaline rush in my body to calm. Jared turns to look at me over his shoulder, giving my naked chest and low-hanging, unzipped jeans a look before shaking his head in frustration. He really doesn't trust Gia, and I really have to face the facts that Gia can't yet fully comprehend: In a world where a delivery makes me draw a weapon and I question everyone and anyone, including a longtime friend and the woman in my bed, being alone is better, and trust doesn't exist.
FOURTEEN.
HOURS LATER, all three of us have showered and thrown on casual attire. The sun has set long ago behind the skyline, darkness a cloak beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main living area. The marble coffee table is the command center of our hours of work piecing together anything that might be of value to defeat Sheridan and protect Amy.
Stretching, I lean back on the ottoman I'd pulled to the end of the table a good hour ago, watching Gia tab through something on her computer screen while she nibbles on a slice of pizza. Seeming to sense my attention, she arches her brow with a questioning look. I answer by lifting my chin toward Jared, who is sitting on the opposite side of the couch from her. ”Just wondering how you're surviving the stench of his anchovies.”
Jared glances up from his computer, but doesn't stop typing. ”I guess she doesn't have your delicate little nose.”
”Chad's right,” Gia says, crinkling her nose. ”They stink.”
”Spoken like a person who ordered 'just cheese' pizza,” Jared responds. He seems to have grown more comfortable with Gia as we've shared information, and she's become comfortable with him as well.
”Anything that's furry and stinky should not go in food,” Gia fires back. ”And it's funny how furry and stinky remind me of Sheridan. I just finished typing up everything I remember about the year I spent with the man. The dinners. The conversations. The people in his life. I just e-mailed my notes to both of you at the addresses you gave me. I'm ”
”GiaGia?” I ask, and it's my turn to arch a questioning brow.
”It's a memory,” she explains.
”Gia, you know-”
”That I'm not Gia anymore,” she finishes. ”Yes. It's a free e-mail address on Jared's protected remote server. Let me cling to my past where I can safely.”
”There is no place to do it safely. I didn't make those kinds of a.s.sumptions, and I still don't know how I was located and targeted by Meg.”
”So far I can't find a clear answer to that,” Jared adds, ”and I know you've looked as well, but I'm not exactly focused right now. I just fed a personnel list for the facility Gia worked at into a program I created, as well as the guest list for Friday night's party. The program will flag certain criteria I've coded it to look for, but it's going to take a few hours. I can speed it up by not running anything else at the same time.” He pulls another computer out of his briefcase. ”Good thing I have a backup computer.” He glances at me. ”I've done this previously with Meg and come up dry. When I couldn't find anything on her electronically, I followed her to a restaurant and bar in Denver, played the social game, and left with her fingerprints. I've done a few jobs for the FBI, and I managed to get her details run through their system without leaving any record the search was done. Nothing turned up. She doesn't exist.”
I'm blown away by everything Jared's done, feeling like a s.h.i.+thead for doubting him. ”Thanks, man. Seriously. I didn't even have time to leave you money when I disappeared. I swear you will be repaid generously in every possible way.”
”The only payment I need is for this to end. And I'm p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l that Meg escaped my radar. She was in Texas at the same time we were, and then she was just gone. No sign of her again, and she's the only link we have to Rollin. And it makes me nervous as h.e.l.l to know he's a dead man walking around out there somewhere, a license to kill from his fictional grave.”
”The upside,” I say, ”is that I can have the honor of putting him in his real grave.”
Jared turns his computer toward Gia. ”You're sure you don't remember seeing Rollin before?”
Her brow furrows. ”You know, now that I see a larger shot rather than the cell phone photo you showed me before, there is something about him, but I don't know what. Maybe . . . a photo on Sheridan's credenza, perhaps?” She shakes her head. ”But I'm not really sure. I didn't exactly get invited to his office to chitchat about his personal life.”
”Why did you go there?” I ask.
”For my interviews. For a couple of team meetings. I think maybe four times.”
”What about when he hosted all those weekly dinners?” I press. ”Did he talk about anything personal at all?”
”He asked us a lot of personal questions as we ate, and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. But once the food was cleared, it was all about the research progress.”
”This really shouldn't be news,” I say. ”Sheridan is a smooth operator who is never foolish.”
”He left a door open, and Gia overheard a conversation that led her to help you escape,” Jared reminds me. ”That sounds pretty foolish to me. Greed and desperation create screwups. And six years is a long time for both things to fester.”
”Yes,” Gia says, averting her gaze to punch a random key on her computer. ”Six years is a long time for it to fester.”
Sensing a s.h.i.+ft in her mood, I tilt my head to study her, but she leaps to her feet, tugging her teal T-s.h.i.+rt over her snug black leggings, and announcing, ”I need a soda. I put some of the beer from the grocery order in the fridge earlier-anyone want one?”
Jared lifts a finger. ”I'm in. I hack better with a buzz.”
Gia arches a brow in my direction, but I don't miss how she doesn't quite make eye contact.
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