The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (52 page)

Geoff expected fireworks, but instead she walked to the counter and very calmly crooked her finger at the frazzled young man, coaxing him to bend forward so that she could murmur something in his ear. He did, reluctantly, and their whispered conversation went on for several seconds before the clerk snapped his head up and nodded. Randy glanced over at Geoff, a flash of triumph in her eyes.

A moment later she was walking toward Geoff, waggling a room key at him. “Our accommodations are ready.”

“Accommodations?”

“Um-hmm,” she said, clearly pleased with herself. “We have the presidential suite at our disposal. No charge.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I merely mentioned the name of the man we’re in town to do business with—Carlos Santeras. I suggested that Carlos might be just the slightest bit put out if he couldn’t find us when he came by for our breakfast meeting tomorrow morning.”

Geoff did manage to rouse himself for that. “Are you nuts?” he breathed, standing with one whip of his powerful legs.

Randy dropped the key in her blouse pocket, looking all the more pleased for having gotten a rise out of him. “I prefer to think of it as expedient,” she said. “Is there a problem? You were admiring my style before, if I remember.”

Geoff pulled her aside to impress upon her the dangers of dropping names of local criminals. “You’re lucky the clerk didn’t call the police,” he told her. “Santeras might have hired a public relations firm to clean up his image, but he’s still a crook, trust me. He’s suspected of running an international smuggling ring—everything from guns to priceless art.”

“I’m familiar with Mr. Santeras’s reputation, thank you. And I also happen to know that he’s buying into resort hotels, which is why he may have had dealings with Hugh. I think they were both bidding on the same chain.”

Geoff snorted. “If that’s the case, then Hugh-baby is history. Santeras isn’t the type to play fair with his competition.”

“Hugh ... history?”

She looked so stricken, Geoff felt a flash of guilt. “Settle down,” he said irritably. “I’ll track down your fiancé. You’ll never know what a colossal mistake you’re making unless I find the little weasel and bring him back.”

She couldn’t seem to decide whether to thank him or argue with him. He ended her dilemma by pointing out a bank of elevators. “Let’s check out the room,” he suggested.

“Rooms,” she hastened to correct. “It’s a very large suite, with three bedrooms.”

She continued explaining the concept of a suite to him at length as they rode up in the elevator. Either she wanted to impress upon him the vast size of the place, which meant plenty of distance between them, or she figured him for a hayseed who’d never seen the inside of anything bigger than a roadside motel. Either way, her lecture amused him. He’d seen the inside of more suites than she could shake her rear end at.

“Oh, my,” she said in hushed tones as the elevator doors opened onto the penthouse floor. “Isn’t this something?”

Geoff had to agree. A row of graceful Kentia palms lined each side of the white marble entry, leading the eye to the two huge Chinese porcelain vases that flanked the suite’s carved mahogany double doors. In another time, it could have been the entrance to a sultan’s royal chambers.

He opened the doors, ushering Randy into an octagonal foyer and smiling at her reaction. She murmured in delight, drawing her fingers along the marble top of a black lacquered bombé chest as she walked through to the living area, a spacious salon furnished with pastel upholstery and a junglelike profusion of exotic plants.

The walls were hung with prints of French impressionists, and the room’s high ceilings were opened to the sapphire blue sky by skylights and clerestory windows. The living area flowed directly into the dining area, all of which was surrounded by an expansive terrace.

Geoff walked to the terrace doors and opened them to warm waves of heavily perfumed air and the jungle drumbeats of a samba street band. The Cariocas, as the natives of Rio were called, were already practicing feverishly for the parades to come. Pleasantly reminded of how Rio stimulated all of the senses, Geoff gazed out at the colored umbrellas that dotted Copacabana Beach across the way. The bay beyond was a glassy sheet of reflected sunlight that swept the attention northeast, where Sugarloaf peak soared above the coastal mountains.

When he turned back, Randy was sitting at an antique writing desk, busily jotting down notes on a pad of paper. The woman needed to loosen up, he decided.

“Writing your memoirs?” Geoff asked. “What chapter am I?”

“You’re the one entitled ‘If He Has Long Hair and Rides a Motorcycle, Keep Your Eyes Open and Your Legs Closed.’ ” She flashed him an impertinent smile, then finished up whatever she was doing and rose from the desk to give him the paper.

Geoff skimmed a long list of dos and don’ts entitled “House Rules.” The first item particularly intrigued him: “There will be no physical contact between the two parties involved during the course of the assignment,” it said. The word
no
had been underlined three times. The next few items had to do with cohabitation etiquette, including a reference to unnecessary nudity and feet on the furniture.

“No feet on the furniture?” Geoff asked, feigning perplexity as he walked to the nearest couch, a delicate white loveseat with silky cushions. He flopped down and swung up his booted feet, resting them on the cushions. “Is this what you’re talking about?” he asked, smiling quizzically. “I just want to be sure.”

Caked dirt crumbled from his boot heels, soiling the pristine white silk. Randy drew in a sharp breath, then folded her arms as if to contain herself. Her dark eyebrows took on an attitude when she was angry, but it was the slight flare of her nostrils that really drove him crazy. Arousal tugged in the pit of his stomach. God, she was sexy. He loved crowding her. He loved watching her flare.

“You really are a bad-mannered brute, aren’t you?” she said.

“Hey, I’m just trying to get your rules straight. What was that other one? No unnecessary nudity?” He rose from the couch, flashing a slow grin as he stripped off his vest. It hadn’t hit the floor before he’d caught hold of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head.

“What kind of nudity do you find unnecessary?” he asked, shaking out his hair as he let the shirt drop to the floor. “Is this nude enough for you? Or do I have to get bare-assed? I’m just trying to figure it out, sweetness.”

A flush of heat crept up her throat. “Figure this out,” she warned him. “If you take off one more stitch of clothing, I’ll call hotel security and have you carted off to a jungle prison, where you’ll rot and putrify like maggot food. And if you call me sweetness one more time, I’ll—” She seemed to be struggling for something gruesome enough. “I’ll poke out your eye with a sharp stick!”

“Now you’ve got me scared.”

She glared threateningly, but Geoff only laughed, his hands on the tab fastener of his fatigue pants. She might be angry, but he could see by the way she was watching him that she wasn’t unaffected by what she saw. Her focus seemed momentarily riveted on his upper torso, her breath quickening as she took in his golden body hair and the honed muscles of his chest and arms. As her gaze dropped to his pants, she shuddered.

“I don’t have to put up with this,” she said. “I can fire you.”

She seemed to be fighting the desire to look down, which was just where he wanted her to look. He undid the tab, letting the waistband of his pants hang open. “Then who would find Hugh for you?”

“I’ll find him myself. I don’t need you.”

“Don’t be so sure.” He moved as if to unzip his fly, and she gasped softly, her gaze darting to his crotch. Geoff felt a jolt of pleasure, almost as if she’d touched him there. His thoughts careened backward to another time when she
had
touched him there. He’d felt a fluttery lightness at first, like a hummingbird hovering near a flower, stealing some nectar, discovering and retreating, driving him wild.

“Why are you being like this?” she asked, interrupting his reverie just as it was getting good.

“Maybe because your rules don’t make sense, Randy. They aren’t realistic, especially the first one. Physical contact is hard to avoid when two people are living together in close quarters.”

“These quarters aren’t close.”

“They could get close. Accidents happen.” He waited a moment until she defiantly met his gaze, and then he started slowly toward her. She thrust a hand out to ward him off, but he paid no attention. He didn’t stop, not completely, not until her hand was touching his bare chest.

The contact of skin on skin seemed to paralyze her. Her hand was rigid against his pectorals, but he could feel the erratic pulsebeat coursing through her fingertips. She was vibrating inside. Good. He wanted her as rattled as he was, as rattled as he’d been ten years ago.

“Close like now,” he said. He glanced down at her hand, at her fingers nestling tautly in his chest hair, and felt a tightening all the way to the soles of his feet. Every part of his body was going hard on him, including the one she seemed so curious about. His heart began to pound and he wondered if she could feel its force. God knew he was feeling it. He was feeling things he couldn’t remember ever experiencing before with another woman, except maybe her.

“Is this the physical contact you were talking about?” he asked. “Or was it something more like this?” He caught hold of her wrist, his grip firm as he drew her hand up, inching her closer to him.

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“I almost wish I could. But I have a hard time doing that with you, Randy. A very hard time.”

He tugged on her wrist, and she stumbled a little closer, cursing under her breath. But he didn’t let up. He kept increasing the pressure until she was so close their thighs were brushing.

“I won’t allow this,” she hissed. “Either you let me go and agree never to touch me again, or—”

“Or what?”

“I want you out of here! Now!”

“Don’t make idle threats, Randy. You’ll never get to Santeras without me. You won’t even be able to make contact. And if you did, you wouldn’t last five minutes with a viper like him. He’d amuse himself with you until you were begging for mercy, and then he’d hand you over to his thugs.”

He pulled her closer and bent toward her mouth. “You need me, Randy.” His breath went husky and hot, bathing her face. “You need me, baby. Admit it.”

She jerked her head away, refusing to submit, and at the same time, exposing the curve of her throat to him. He blew away strands of her silky dark hair, then drew his tongue lightly along the graceful arc of her neck, all the time locking her wrist so that she couldn’t get away.

The urgent sound that slipped from her throat wasn’t quite a moan ... but it became one as he caught a tiny section of pale flesh between his teeth. He gave her a sharp little nip, then touched his lips to her reddening skin, a hummingbird kiss, light and hovering, just the way she’d tortured him on the bike.

“You need me, Randy.”

She jerked back her hand. But when he wouldn’t release her, she shuddered and softened. Slowly she turned her face back to his, and the liquid desire in her velvet eyes told him she was aroused, terribly aroused. She gazed up at him helplessly, her lips parted. “All right,” she admitted, her voice a throb. “I need you ... but don’t do this. Don’t take advantage.”

She moved against him, her breath quickening. He didn’t know what she was doing. She might have been trying to get away, but the silky float of her breasts against his bare chest was more invitation than he could resist.

His body urged him to do exactly what she was asking him not to.
Go ahead, Dias, a voice whispered. Take advantage. Lay her down on that couch you just dirtied up and take whatever you can get. Take it all, just like she did.

With his free hand he combed her hair, gathering it up like a ruffle of black silk as he gazed down at her. His body was pounding at him, talking to him, but he held off the voices, the inner forces. There was gratification in knowing he could control the impulses, in knowing he could curb desire. It was all part of the self-mastery he sought.

Just a kiss, he told himself. One stolen kiss.

He covered her mouth with his, moving against her, shocked at the hunger he felt. His hands curled into fists, lifting her, pressing her body into his as if he could make up for all the years of waiting with this one kiss. She resisted for an instant, her lips taut against his, but then, as he took hold of her face and began to gentle her, his fingers stroking her jaw, his thumb playing at the sensitive corner of her mouth, she seemed to melt.

“Don’t make me do this,” she pleaded, but the throaty quality of her voice sounded more like urgent need than a refusal.

“Kiss me back, Randy,” he said.

She shuddered, but her answering moan told him all the fight had gone out of her. She was yielding to whatever forces had built inside her. He released her wrist, and his hands fell immediately to her waist, then slid to her hips, her buttocks. Her trembling increased as he cupped her, and she raised her arms in a gesture of such helplessness it made him suddenly, painfully harder. His fingers curled hungrily into her soft flesh.

The urge for completion was like a force of nature inside him. He hardly knew how to stave it off. And yet, at the same time, he realized he had no intention of taking advantage in the way she meant, not then, not yet. He’d seen the heat in her eyes when she looked at him, the erotic fascination. That might have been enough incentive for him once, but he wanted more than simple physical lust from her now. He wanted the satisfaction of hearing her utter his name with the same passionate conviction with which she said Hugh’s. He wanted to be the man she dreamed of.

His breath shook with the effort it took to control himself. He touched her lips lightly, wanting to deepen the kiss, to take possession of her with his mouth. Muscles were tightening at the base of his body, aching. But somewhere in the midst of all his pent-up ardor, he heard a strange faint sound.

At first it was just a soft shrill in the depths of his consciousness. He hardly heard it, and even when he did, he dismissed it as some errant impulse from his nervous system, just blood roaring in his ears. But it became louder and more insistent, and finally he realized it was something else, a telephone or a door.