“Go,” he urged her. “I’ll wait here until you’re inside the building. I’m counting to sixty then I’m at the lab. Expect me in one hour. Two tops. If not by three, you go into hiding, Ky. I know you know how to do that. Do it.”
“I will. But Daren, don’t make me. Please, just go and come back.”
“Deal.” He turned her and pushed her a bit to get her moving. She glanced back once, but then made a bee-line for the hotel. He watched her until she ducked in the revolving doors, then began his count. She didn’t text, or send a signal, but he counted to sixty another time, then focused on her dad’s lab.
Time to do the job.
He put Kylie out of his mind and focused on the here and now. The building was tall, set far enough back from the guard house that it would be difficult to get to without being seen. The place was lit up too, but like most of the businesses in Japan, it was ornamental as well. Trees, shrubs and flowers decorated the outside of the building. More lined the walkway and circled a large fountain in the center. The corners of the building had cameras, and more were visible on the gate and fence. It was daylight. There were two guards and more probably worked the inside.
“How you going to play it?”
At the first word, Daren had his gun out and connected with Tazz’s head. His buddy didn’t grin, but his eyes lightened out to an odd blue. A color Daren had never seen before, almost like Tazz had frosted them.
“Damn, sorry, man, you need to watch how you sneak up on a man,” he said, immediately lowering his gun.
“You need to not let a man sneak up on you.”
True, but he had, hadn’t he? Stress from the situation, no doubt, not superpower Tazzman. “Where’s the little guy?”
“Monroe is not too happy right now, but he’s secure. The link to the men who have her dad is almost complete.”
“What does that mean?” Dare demanded
“Monroe was persuaded to call and buy us more time.”
A rush of relief shot through him.
I gotta call Ky.
“You got confirmation of life,” he verified.
Tazz nodded, even though it’d not been a question. For some reason, Dare’s anxiety went higher instead of lower. “We need to get him out of there.”
“We need to get in the lab, first.”
“What kind of game is this, Tazz? Whose fucking team are you on?”
Tazz shoved him to the wall behind them and got in his face. “I’m on
my
team, and you, my man, are on it. Now, get your dick out of the equation and try to think.”
Dare knocked Tazz off him and rubbed his shoulder.
“We need to catch the men that have her dad. To do that, we need what they want. Obviously someone else on the inside is in on this.”
“Obviously. Look, you kept me out of what the hell’s been going on since day one, Superman, so just slow down and give me a break on the light speed assumptions. If you think Monroe’s not it, then we need to find the person who is, or fool them into thinking we’re helping Ky.”
“Fool them, huh?” Tazz said, then held up a hand stopping Dare from decking him. “Right, you’re following now. Monroe bought Ky more time. That buys
us
more time. He also said you were helping her, and that I was trying to stop you, while acting as if I was on board.”
“Skating the truth, or simply spilling it?”
“I wouldn’t be here now if I wanted her dead. I’d have already killed her, then you since I’d have to, right?”
“Don’t even—”
“Say it, I know, got that memo. Are you taking this dare? Or is it too risky for you?”
Daren snorted at the joke, but he also trusted Tazz. No one could bullshit him. No one ever had. “We just walking in, then?”
Tazz handed him a badge and grinned. “Sure thing. New security.”
Daren glanced at the badge and shook his head. “Is Mac here? Eagle?”
“No.” Tazz rubbed his jaw and squinted over at the building like it was the pit of doom. “That life’s over for me.” He turned and gave Dare another odd, light blue stare. “And for you as well. If you do this, you do it for both of you. Ky and you will have to die sometime soon, and when you do, all those people, everything is gone to you.”
Dare let that sink in for a minute, then he laughed until his sides hurt.
Tazz frowned harder.
“Fuck that, I dare you to make me. I’m going to get her free, get her dad for her and make her so damn happy in our new life, she won’t care if she’s Kylie Chung, or Elvis, but I’m not taking her family from her, and I’m not losing my friends. You just don’t get it, Tazz. You were never dead. If you had been, you never would have come and saved my ass down in South America. You never would have snuck onto a base in Hawaii to see if your baby sister was really okay or not. You’re the only one who thinks you’re dead, man. You. No one else thinks it. And I sure the hell won’t be. I’ll make us disappear, sure, but not dead. Never dead.”
For once Tazz listened, but Dare doubted he really heard him.
“Fine, you do it your way, just as long as you have your sights on the mission, and follow my lead.”
“Don’t I always?” Dare asked, clipping the badge on his wallet. He quickly pocketed it with his sidearm on his belt after.
“Good, then I think we should use the front door.”
* * * *
Ky paced the hotel room again for what felt like, and probably was, the hundredth time. Daren said an hour, maybe two. She’d given him an hour and now it’d been almost two. She’d showered. She’d changed. She’d tried to eat, but managed only to drink the water and nibble on the fries nervously.
She wanted Daren. Now.
All this time, all these years, she’d wondered about the man she’d saved that night and worried he’d been taken. She’d somehow led the wrong men right to him. She’d heard them only because she’d paid a local boy to keep watch. When he’d raced in to tell her they were only a few blocks away, she’d said her goodbyes to Dare and slipped out, leading the men to another part of town, where, unfortunately, they’d found her.
Now Dare was in her dad’s lab, or possibly being tortured for her location. She couldn’t let that happen, because she knew he’d never break. She had. After they’d used bamboo rods on the soles of her feet, she’d told them everything they’d wanted to know.
Now, here he is, saving you again. Get out there and stop them, Ky.
She walked to the door and slipped on her high heels, straightened her skirt after. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the door handle. A knock stopped her.
Two more sounded.
Then a quick three. She couldn’t get the door open fast enough, then ended up opening it too fast when it finally did obey her and nearly fell right into Dare’s arms. He wrapped her up in a hug and brushed a kiss to her neck. She breathed him in. He smelled like the cologne she’d dabbed on him at the store, plus warm, wonderful Daren. “I was so worried,” she whispered, her throat so choked up the sound barely came out.
“We have company,” he murmured, moving her back to allow Tazz in.
“Nice place,” he muttered and went straight for the food she’d ordered. “Burgers, huh? Looks good.”
“Help yourself,” she said, glancing at Daren with a questioning look.
“He kinda helped me get inside.” Daren set something on the bed, and turned to sit. “This is what you needed, huh?”
She went over, picked up the file and scanned it. He handed her a metal box, one of the storage devices they used to transport delicate chemicals, or in this case, serum used in the genetic re-coding.
“How—?”
“All in a day’s work,” Tazz said around a huge mouthful of burger.
“He got us in on the fly. Listen, Ky, your dad—” Daren pulled her down to sit beside him and her heart stopped. “He’s alive, baby, don’t, damn, don’t look so scared.”
She heard him, and the words made sense, but she couldn’t seem to breathe past the thud of her heart. It was like it made up for the lost rhythm with painful, hard beats.
“Man, you need to work on your delivery skill. He’s fine for now, we have what they need, we have a plan and right now—” Tazz paused to shove the rest of the burger in his mouth. Quickly wiping his face with his coat sleeve, he glanced at his watch. “Twelve hours until we need to get on a plane. Rest. I’ll meet you two at the airport at twenty-two hundred. Got it?”
“Yeah, got it. You need to stay here?” Dare offered.
Tazz grabbed some fries, and shook his head. “Nah, I have some things to take care of, just meet me at the gate.”
Daren stood and shook Tazz’s hand, murmuring something to him, then walked him to the door. Seconds later, he returned and squatted down in front of her. “Baby, you need to breathe, okay? We’ve bought ourselves some time, but it’s not over yet.”
“But he’s alive? He’s okay?” she asked, standing.
“Tazz says he’s alive, well, and the men who have him want him to stay that way. Seems they want you as well. Gonna start their own factory making business, and they want the daughter to help keep dad in line.”
“So, he’s,” she swallowed and nodded, joy filling her to the point of making her giddy. “He’s okay,” she said.
Daren nodded. “He’s okay, baby.”
“Oh, God, Daren,” she cried and jumped into his arms, so excited, happy, and relieved she felt like she might burst with it. “He’s okay and we’ll get him out, won’t we?”
“Hell, yes we will,” he assured her, cupping her butt in his hands, and stared down hat her
Heat, the subtly warm feeling of wetness she’d been experiencing every time she thought of Daren making love to her in the big queen size bed, flushed her body from head to toe. The joy of hearing her dad was safe, that they were really, actually—really going to save him, shot her reaction to Daren to a new all-time high.
“And you’re okay?” she asked.
“I’m more than fine,” he assured her, his voice dropping to that level she knew meant he was aroused. Aroused and alive.
“Yes, you are,” she murmured.
He dipped his head and brought his forehead down on hers. By the look in his eyes, he was hard, and he had one thing on his mind now.
Her
.
This time, though, she was ready for him. So ready, the moisture flooding her pussy felt like it was soaking her. He’d not only come back to her in one piece, he’d brought her news of her dad. Good news. She wiggled until he let her down, then she dragged his jacket off his shoulders, “Maybe you should show me how fine again, mmmm?”
“Ah, hell, I can do more than that,” he promised, reaching for her again.
“Good, because I waited two hours for you, Daren Scott. And I’m not a patient type of girl.” She molded her palm to his erection and sucked on his jaw, her thoughts so full of Daren, sex and the pleasure they were going to share, she couldn’t stop herself.
Fuck, she fitted him. Something like happiness rushed through Daren’s system, and he forgot everything but the taste of her, feel of her and how much he wanted to have her again, here, now, anywhere he could get her. He pressed her to the wall next to the bed and shoved her skirt up her sexy legs.
“Daren!” She broke off the kiss with a shocked look that turned to something a hundred times better—heat—when he gripped her lush butt in his hands, and rocked his erection against her clit. “Oh, you are so bad.”
“I thought I was good, baby,” he told her, but quickly guided her legs around his hips and hoisted her higher in his arms. “I think I’m going to be real bad, real soon, though, because I want that sweet pussy, baby. Around my cock again,” he warned, when she tried to capture his lips again.
Her heels dug into his lower back, and he fought the urge to unzip and enter her right there and then. She’d been small, so tight he didn’t want to chance harming her.
She searched his face and seemed to see how serious he was, he thought, because her expression turned heated and her breathing grew shallow.
“You like that, baby. Want it wild, so wild you fear you’ll never be the same again?”
“Oh, Daren,” she whispered, cupping her hands on his face. She brushed her lips against his and trembled in his arms. “Don’t you know, it’s that way every time you touch me,” she offered in an unsteady voice.
He groaned. He had to have her. Now. He reached the bed and set her down, unzipped and pressed his hard-on down against her silky entrance. She ripped at her blouse and he helped her by tearing the silk off and unhooking her bra right after. Full, ripe breasts bounced free and he tried to get his mouth around one of the light brown nipples, but she tugged at his shirt and he had to stop and jerk the material over his head before he could get his mouth on one.
“Oh, God!”
For the first time, she yelled.
With a groan, he latched on tight and tried to hold on as she scratched her nails down his back. He couldn’t take much more. He needed her so badly, he had to remind himself to go slow. He gripped her hips and forced his cock inside her silky wetness on a heavy, hard lunge. Ky’s moan of pleasure, and a rush of hot liquid heat welcomed him. He sucked on her tight nipple and cupped the weight of the other in his palm, while he gave her sharp thrusts. Her breasts bounced each time he did, brushing the side of his face each time. The need to come grew, until he had to start counting the number of times he’d landed a perfect touchdown in college, or he feared he’d come before she did.
When he had himself under some control, he released her breast and pulled himself up on one arm to meet her hungry stare. She panted, each one an additional caress along his heated body. Her rounded breasts were perfectly formed. The tiny nipples so puckered, he ducked his head and licked at one, feeling himself growing even harder when the soft flesh quivered against his face. He latched onto her again, pressing the roundness of her nipple against the roof of his mouth and rubbed it there with his tongue. She gave him a husky cry and unable to resist the temptation, he bit down gently, then sucked the point hard.
“Daren!”
He couldn’t get enough of her. He had to release her breast so he could devour the other, roaming his hands over every available inch of her as he pounded into her. He had to touch every inch of her amazing body, and if he could he would have sunk into her until they were one, forever. As it was, he barely held on, giving her all he had in evenly spaced thrusts that built up in tempo no matter what he tried to do to slow down. She drove him insane.