The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (54 page)

Her mouth went dry as she stared at the drawing. He’d captured the raw, forbidden intimacy of their night together with a few graceful, slashing strokes of his pen. She was fully clothed in the picture, but the sweetheart sleeves of her wedding dress had dropped off her shoulders, baring one of her breasts for all the world to see. Worse, she was sitting on Geoff’s lap, facing him, straddling him, just as she had on the bike. Her head was thrown back, her spine arched in swooning ecstasy as he slid his hand up her skirt.

It wasn’t clear whether they were intimately joined, but it was crystal clear that she was a consenting adult to whatever they were doing. More than consenting, she looked like a woman in the throes of rapture—eager, wanton, drugged with passion. And he looked like a man totally confident of his sexual power over her.

The sketch brought back vivid memories, and such sharp sensations of physical pleasure that Randy could hardly catch her breath. She hated admitting even to herself that he’d brought her to such a fever pitch of desire. And it humiliated her to remember how shamelessly she’d behaved with him.

How dare he draw what they’d done? He was invading her privacy, exposing her. She knew she was being foolish. It made no sense allowing herself to feel hurt or betrayed by a man who probably practiced seduction with the same dedication that a preacher practiced religion. But she did feel hurt. She couldn’t help herself.

She told herself to throw the picture away, but for some reason she couldn’t do it. Her wrist locked and her fingers began to shake as she gathered the paper together to crush it. Instead, she slammed the stationery face down and covered it with the pillow, as if she could make it disappear or smother the writhing carnal energy out of it.

She left the bed and walked to the French doors, aware of the sunshine pouring over her like honey from a pitcher as she stepped out onto the balcony. She should have felt warm, but she didn’t. There were too many conflicting emotions tangled up inside her. She had no idea how to deal with the problem of Geoff Dias, but she had to find a way. This couldn’t go on any longer. She had to confront him. Harder still, she had to confront her feelings for him.

Once she’d showered and dressed, she found him on the penthouse terrace having breakfast. He’d changed from fatigue pants to faded khaki shorts and a ribbed cotton tank top, and his legs were long and tanned and dusted with golden hair. The table he sat at was facing the horizon, a stunning, seamless backdrop of dense blue sky and equally blue water.

He was staring out to sea, and Randy was hesitant to disturb his meditation. He looked absorbed in his thoughts, almost peaceful. Sunlight filtered through the
palmeira
that shaded him, catching errant tendrils of his hair as the breezes lifted them. It gilded the long strands like spun gold, making him seem almost ethereal, a god at rest, the artist in a moment of contemplation.

The table next to him was set with a sterling silver coffee service and a platter of crusty rolls and sticky, pecan-studded buns. Another large platter held rainbow tiers of the fruits of the country, including wedges of melon, mango, deep-red papaya, and a heap of luscious Brazilian figs.

The air was balmy warm and the scene so bucolic. Randy felt almost mollified, as if Mother Nature herself was cautioning her, “Don’t worry, be happy.” No wonder people loved the tropics, she thought. The weather lulled you into abandoning your concerns—along with your inhibitions. However, as much as she wanted to sit down, eat a mango, and relax, she had to talk with him. She had to lay down the law.

He glanced up at her as she approached, a sidelong look that said he’d been expecting her. His green eyes shimmered with anticipation.

She held the picture up for him to see, but kept it just out of his reach, as if too close a look might titillate him. She didn’t want to remind him of what he’d drawn—or what they’d done. “I consider this a gross violation of my privacy,” she said with no preamble whatsoever.

“Sit down,” he invited, motioning to the wrought-iron chair across from him. “Have some coffee. It’s Brazilian, strong enough to pour itself.”

She remained standing, unyielding. “How did you get in my room?”

In no particular hurry, he took a drink of his
cafezinho
, a tiny cup of sweetened black coffee, then tore off a yeasty section of sweet roll and ate it. “Locked doors are my business,” he said finally.

“Then tonight I’ll barricade it.”

“Don’t waste your time. Randy. You could lock yourself in a bank vault, and it wouldn’t stop me, not if I wanted to get in.”

“Really?” Her voice was inching toward shrillness. “I never knew you were so talented. An artist, a safecracker—what else?”

His quick smile held a sexy warning.
You haven’t seen anything yet
, it said. He checked out her outfit, hesitating on the halter top of her sundress as if he were waiting for her to swoon, arch her back, and pop out a breast so he could draw another picture.

Impulsively, Randy held out the sketch, crushed it in her fist, and dropped the wad of paper on the table.

His smile faded, which pleased her immensely.

“We have to talk.” She pulled a chair out from the table and seated herself, her heart creating a terrible uproar. Her rigid stance warned him not to push her any further. But what would she do if he did? Every confrontation with him was freighted with risk. She could spar with him verbally, but she was no match for him in any other way.

He simply settled back, folded his arms, and gazed at her. “By all means. Talk. Amaze me some more.”

She felt a stab of pain near her ear and realized she must be clenching her jaw. She was sure to have a headache before this was over with. “If you’ll remember, I made up a list of house rules—”

“I do remember. They specified no physical contact, but they didn’t say anything about drawing pictures.”

“Would it have made any difference if they had?”

“Probably not.”

“Geoff, this has got to stop—”

“I like that,” he said softly. “I like it when you say my name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say it before.”

He sounded grainy voiced and slightly surprised. The curiosity in his expression made him seem sincere. Randy felt a softening inside, a loosening of tight muscles and tighter inhibitions. She fought to control the reaction, aware that it was easier dealing with him when he was being perverse. When he was civil, or God forbid, nice, she didn’t know how to defend herself.

“You may not hear me say it again,” she told him, determined to be tough. “If you don’t agree to my rules, it’s over. The deal’s off. I’ll find Hugh without you.”

“Never going to happen,” he warned.

“You won’t agree to the rules?”

“No—you’ll never find Hugh.”

“And you’ll never get what you want.”

“Which is?”

She hesitated, nearly light-headed from the way her pulse was racing. “A night. One night ... with me.”

The slow lift of his chin betrayed his surprise. “A repeat performance?” he said. “You and me?”

“Yes.” She’d played the wild card, her only bargaining chip with him. She hated having to resort to such a desperate tactic, feeling as if she were going against everything she believed in about honesty, and personal ethics—but she had no other options left. If Geoff thought they were going to make love at a later point, perhaps he would leave her alone for now, and they could both concentrate on finding Hugh. She was counting on that being the case, and she needed the time it would buy her. When they found Hugh ... well, she would deal with that problem when the time came.

He tapped the porcelain coffee cup with his forefinger. “Since you put it that way,” he said, glancing up at her through lowered lashes.

“You agree, then?”

He shrugged, a gesture of surrender. “Do with me what you will. I’m yours to command.”

“Good. As long as you understand that I’m calling the shots, then let’s get started.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking for Hugh, of course. I want to begin our investigation.”

“
Our
investigation?”

“Yes, I want to be involved. I think we should start with the American consulate, then the local police.”

He was shaking his head slowly. “I’d suggest we avoid the red tape of the official investigation and go straight to the source. I speak enough Portuguese and French to be understood by the locals. With some luck, we can trace Hugh’s steps directly, starting with the hotel he was staying at.”

“All right,” she said hesitantly. She was more than prepared to make concessions if it meant speeding things up. It only made sense to let him handle the investigation. He was the expert at finding people, but at least now she had veto power.

Relaxing a little, she poured herself a cup of the rich black coffee and took one of the crusty rolls, aware that he was watching her with undisguised interest. He was probably wondering what kind of woman would do the things she’d done—get involved with a stranger on the road and then, ten years later, strike a sexual bargain with that same stranger. Most men would have concluded that she was either desperate or a woman of easy virtue. She imagined Geoff Dias thought she was both ... and she was beginning to wonder if he was right.

She poured enough milk in the coffee to make it drinkable, then sipped it slowly, aware that it was too potent a brew to simply relax and enjoy, and yet at the same time, that it was undoubtedly habit-forming ... not unlike him.

Finally she set the cup down and turned to him, ready to unburden herself. She was surprised to see that he had smoothed out the drawing she’d crumpled. He was studying it with an expression that she couldn’t immediately put a name to. Reflective, perhaps. Moody. Yes, he looked rather distracted.

“You have to understand that Hugh is the man I love,” she told him. “I’m engaged to marry him, and I’d make any sacrifice to get him back, even ... ”

“Sleeping with me?” he finished as she hesitated.

“Even that.”

“The ultimate torture?”

When she didn’t answer, he rose from the chair and walked to the wrought-iron railing that bordered the terrace. Turning his back to the bright blue sky, he leaned against the railing and stared at her. Haloed by sunlight, his face and body carved by shadows, he was breathtaking. The green of his eyes was brilliant, as though lit by an emotion even the shade couldn’t subdue.

Arrested by the juxtaposition of man and nature, by the simplicity of his casual pose, Randy admitted to herself that she was far more attracted to him than she ever had been to Hugh. Irresistibly physically attracted.

And yet she knew physical attraction to a man wasn’t enough. It could ruin a woman. It had ruined her mother’s life. A man had to have character. He had to be stable and dependable. But try as she would to convince herself that she shouldn’t be affected by Geoff Dias, the shakiness in her stomach wouldn’t go away. She felt as loose and fluttery as the butterflies wafting overhead. It seemed she was like her mother, doomed to be drawn to the wrong kind of man.

“I want to be with Hugh,” she said, uttering the words softly, urgently.

“You may want to be with him, but you don’t love him. If I believed you did, I wouldn’t be here.”

His voice was husky again, compellingly sincere. It made her feel strange and vulnerable when he talked that way. It made her throat ache. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “What do you want?”

“Why did you do it to me? What was the point of seducing me and running off?”

Randy thought she saw a flaring of pain in his eyes, but it was gone so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. She would never be sure with him. she realized. That was the problem. “I don’t know why I did it. I was hurting and terribly angry. Everybody thought I was a wild kid anyway, probably because of Edna. Since I already had the reputation, I thought I might as well live up to it.”

“So I was an experiment, an opportunity to find out just how wild you could be with a renegade biker?”

“Yes, maybe—I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking in those terms. I wasn’t thinking at all, I guess.”

“Nothing’s changed, has it?” he said, almost bitterly. “Did it ever occur to you that I was anything more than an extension of that motorcycle, Randy? That I might have some feelings about what happened between us?”

She searched his face, looking for any evidence of the feelings he mentioned. He was good at hiding them. He was one of the coolest characters she’d ever come across, almost as if he were determined to control every vulnerable response, down to the tiniest spasm of nerves. And yet there was a darkness glowing in his features, a brightness glittering in the depths of his eyes that couldn’t be controlled. They fascinated her, those glimpses of his inner world. She wanted to know what Geoff Dias was protecting, what he was feeling.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” she told him. “But apparently I did, both of us. I’m sorry.”

She hesitated, waiting for a response. When he didn’t react, she probed a little further. “You seem so determined to prove that Hugh is wrong for me,” she said. “Why do you care? Did what happen between us shake you up that badly?”

He flared without warning, striding toward her, pulling her out of the chair. “I’ll tell you when I’m hurting, sweetness. You’ll be the first to know.” His voice was low, almost harsh as he noticed the hand he was gripping, the bright coral polish she’d painted on her nails.

“What’s the occasion?” he asked. “Is this for me?”

Randy was too shaken to remind him of the house rules. “Not for you,” she said angrily, “
because
of you. I needed a distraction, but don’t flatter yourself that it means anything.”

His hand tightened on her wrist as he glared at her, caught somewhere between male rage and the need to control it. Seconds ticked by, each one a tiny bomb exploding in Randy’s head. She was no match for him. She couldn’t possibly stop him if he decided to get physical, if he decided to—

“Let’s get going,” he said abruptly. “The sooner we find your beloved fiancé, the sooner you pay up.”

His fingers were biting into her flesh, but there was something in his voice, a tone, a drumbeat, that told Randy he was more than angry. He was dangerously jealous.