Part 4 (1/2)
”You're not hungry?” What did the woman take for energy?
”Mmm...well, food wasn't on my mind a minute ago,” she teased, smiling, ”but let's raid the fridge you claimed is full of my favorite things. See what we can come up with.”
He remembered the cold cut chicken. The big carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. And groaned. Surely he was going nuts. He was thinking about food when he had a woman under him, in a bed. Where were his priorities?
She read his mind and chuckled again. ”My ego is shot all to h.e.l.l, Stash honey. To lose to food...I guess the tummy complaints weren't the moving violation you had in mind?”
”No.” Reluctantly he lifted himself to a sitting position.
They had both forgotten about the necklace tangled around them, and Steve pulled Marlena up with him as well. Laughing aloud, she steadied herself by flattening her palms against his chest.
”Mmm,” she murmured, distracted. Her splayed fingers traveled up and down the front of his T-s.h.i.+rt. ”Nice and hard. I was quite jealous of that tailor today. He was touching you all over. You must work out a lot. I can feel all your muscles.”
Oh-oh. Warning bells rang in his head. His kind of body was not sculpted in the gym. ”I like outdoor sports,” he told her, trying to ignore what her hands were doing to him.
”What kind?”
The lady was good with her hands, but he wasn't going to be conned into slipping up. ”Jogging, running, swimming, outdoor stuff.”
”We'll have to exercise together if we have time,” she said.
”Sure.” He doubted that she would like the stuff he did. He began to unwind the long necklace, taking it off her first, since it had somehow twisted into a double knot near his neck.
She barely paid attention, seemingly finding the hard ridges of his abs fascinating. She tried to pull his T-s.h.i.+rt out of his pants. Normally Steve wouldn't stop any beautiful woman wanting to explore his chest, but her questions had left him wary. He had learned that she was always after something else.
He looped her hands with a chain of pearls and brought them to his lips, kissing her fingertips softly. Her blue eyes gleamed back at him, but he couldn't tell what she was thinking. ”Fair is fair,” he told her. ”You want to see what's underneath, you have to show me what's underneath that silly Tweety Bird s.h.i.+rt.”
”It's not silly. Tweety Bird is my favorite cartoon character.” She pulled her hands loose and worked on the knot holding them both prisoners.
”Your favorite cartoon is a bird?” Steve asked incredulously. Somehow he couldn't picture Marlena watching cartoons. And certainly not a bird. At her gesture he lifted his chin up and patiently let her untwist and unwind.
”Yup, even have a tattoo of Tweety.”
”Where?”
Her answering smile was small and secretive and instantly made him want to go on search mode. ”Where?” he demanded again.
”There, free at last,” Marlena said. The long double strand of pearls swung loose. She eyed it admiringly. ”I must say you look good in pearls.”
”It doesn't go with my shoes,” Steve dryly mocked. ”I want to see that Tweety Bird.”
”All in good time, Stash, all in good time. Let's go fix you something to eat first, hmm? Are you as good at cooking as kissing?”
Steve reluctantly stood up. ”We'll both find out.” He didn't want to go but he remembered the tablecloth he had used to handle her things. With her keen eyes, he should really double-check to make sure there were no smudges.
Marlena folded up the clothes on the bed while sounds of dishes and silverware clanging came from the kitchen. She was glad about the interruption. Another minute and she would have forgotten her self-control. She couldn't afford to forget anything, not at this time. She gathered up the wires, walked deliberately to stand a few feet from a portrait placed strategically facing the bed, and dumped the electronics leftovers like trash. Staring straight ahead, she lifted her chin in a silent challenge.
A little over an hour later, Marlena came back into the room and with a small blade dislodged the tiny electronic micro eye hidden in the frame. She had returned that device there on purpose earlier. Disabling it, she dropped the useless chip into the pile on the carpet. It had served its purpose.
She walked out to the mini bar. She shoved aside the bottle of whiskey. She needed something smooth and rich. Cognac. Yes, that might put her in a mellow mood.
It hadn't been easy saying no to a man like Stash. He had left after dinner, given her one of his long looks that almost had her changing her mind. Her attraction for him was stronger than she'd thought. It had been a long time since she had actually l.u.s.ted after a man from the other side, and she knew how high a price that could be.
Marlena wasn't willing to pay that price again. Except for one thing. She frowned and took a long swallow of the brandy, feeling its fiery heat go straight down her throat into her tummy. The last time the l.u.s.t she had felt was never like this. She'd never been so aware of a man as she was of Stash McMillan. She felt it down to her toenails whenever he followed her with his dark gaze. He reminded her of a caged animal for some reason. She had tested his depths and knew that he had a mind of his own. It was in the way he stood watching her with those brooding eyes, in the way he demanded her attention by merely quirking his beautiful mouth, in the way he pretended to be just what he claimed to be. And he made her laugh. She couldn't remember a day when she had laughed so much. He was good. Very good.
The phone rang. It still wasn't whom she was expecting. Picking up the receiver in the kitchen, she didn't bother to be polite. ”Yes?”
”Marlena Maxwell, your bodyguard is useless against us. We want what you have. Hand it over or we'll come after you from all sides, wherever you are.”
Marlena sighed. ”Dear me, and if I give it up, you'll just leave me alone.” She studied her hand, frowning at a chipped fingernail.
”You don't have an option. Give us what we want, or die.”
”Um, sorry, you just gave me two options.”
”You think you can joke with us over this?”
”Why not? Only clowns would talk over a bugged phone this long.”
The line went dead. Marlena tapped her chin with the receiver as she thoughtfully looked overhead, at the micro eye and bug she knew were above her. No doubt, whoever was on the other end of those stupid things had heard every word exchanged, just as they had this morning, when Stash answered the phone. She also knew that they wouldn't be able to trace those calls.
Probabilities and percentages. That was the tightrope she balanced on. The probability of these two parties working together was low, and the percentage that they might help her cause by getting in each other's way was higher. Thus it didn't hurt to let whoever was monitoring her know that other people were after her, too. She was used to different groups trying to get what she had, thinking they could handle one woman. She smiled mirthlessly.
It was easy to let her gender blind them all. From the moment she had walked into this apartment with Steve, she had been ready for a setup. What she had come to D.C. for was big enough to attract those who couldn't afford to pay its real worth. She was used to shady types coming after her. Apparently it might not even be just the usual kind of crooks.
The special CIA-originated electronic devices betrayed them. They didn't think she'd know the difference, but she had contacts, and there were plenty of CIA boys who were greedy for money, showing off new inventions being tried out by the agency. So the question of the day was-which side was Steve working for? Good CIA or bad CIA? It was going to be a challenge to find out. Her contact had been very careful thus far, doing everything through middlemen. She would have to take a few more risks than usual. And letting those others know her phone was bugged was one of them.
The thought of putting Stash in danger made her heart skip a beat. Marlena frowned. Why would she be concerned about that, if he were just someone hired to keep an eye on her? He shouldn't mean a thing, not a d.a.m.n thing.
Confusion in the enemy camp was good. Steve's commander from his SEAL team had told him that, quoting some ancient Chinese text called The Art of War. He was right. Steve was confused, tired, and frustrated. He had this simple plan. Charm the shoes off a beautiful woman. Get some names. Send her to the Department of Justice. His task force team would then get some action, going after whoever had ordered a contract on...on whom? That was the problem. Too many things missing in this a.s.signment.
When he was with his former team, he knew who the enemy was, why they were there, what they were after. Black STAR's objective was to search and destroy paramilitary enemies with an agenda against the U.S. government. The wars were always covert, out of the public eye, but they were real. There was a procedure to each maneuver-his allotment of ammo, location of a target, a timetable, and a clear briefing on the goals of the operation.
Since his transfer he'd been trying very hard to adjust to this new kind of war. Admiral Madison had told him that he was needed here for now, and he had accepted the orders after voicing a few objections. The higher pay was an incentive; he needed the money. From the beginning, the friction between him and his new team had been obvious. It wasn't that they disliked one another-it was just his style didn't suit theirs.
This was the first real test. At least Steve saw it that way. For the first time in months there was something tangible happening. He could feel in his bones that it was big. This operation would show him why he'd been transferred, why Admiral Madison told him his skills were needed here.
His mind skimmed quickly through the important things from the day. There was the early morning call with the threats. No one had followed Marlena and him all day, except for his own task force men who were now outside the apartment building for the night. Then there was the quick search of Marlena's suitcase that hadn't yielded anything of significance.
When he entered the surveillance room, he found Harden there alone. Great. That was all he needed, another clash with the operations chief.
It wasn't that he disliked his O.C. Harden had been nothing but fair to him, but the man had a black hole where his personality should be. In the hallways, Steve heard them whisper his nickname, Hard-On, and the reference wasn't meant to be complimentary.
”Where are the others?” Steve asked as he walked over to the desk where his O.C. sat. As usual he sensed disapproval from the man, even though nothing in his face betrayed it.
”I sent them home. They're on call in case your target does something between now and tomorrow.”