She felt his knees bend, his hold tighten on her. A second later a fractured cry tore from her lips as he thrust farther inside her, deeper, harder.
The impalement stole her breath from the pleasure and the pain. She writhed on his erection, trying to work it deeper, loving the burning pleasure, that edge of pain that she had never imagined could be so damned erotic.
She could feel every bulge of vein, every hard throb of pulsing blood. The way his ass clenched beneath her heels, the way his back tightened as he worked deeper, and it only made her hotter, wetter. It only made her crave him more.
"Are they watching, Kira?" His voice was tormented as he stilled inside her, and buried his face against her neck. "Where are they?"
She heard the torment in his voice. They were his friends. Friends who he believed thought he had betrayed them. Friends he would have willingly given his life for.
"I don't know," she panted out breathlessly. She didn't know, not for sure. She suspected. She assumed. But she didn't know, and it was best that way.
His hold tightened on her as he half-lifted her and stumbled to the door.
"Ian?"
"Goddamn you, you're mine!" His voice raged with possessiveness, the tone, his hold, sending a piercing shaft of aching desperation through her soul. He sounded as though he meant it. "I'll be damned if they need to watch this."
He turned to the wall within the room, pressed her to it, and began to thrust.
His cock pounded inside her, he took her ruthlessly, thrusting, penetrating, groaning her name as she watched the stars explode in front of her vision as she tightened around him.
"Ah God. Yes, baby. Come around me," he groaned. "Let me feel it. Every ripple . . ." His head fell back, his breath heaving through his chest as his hands clenched on her ass.
Kira couldn't think. She couldn't plot a next move. She was lost in the pleasure, coming apart and wondering why the hell he was holding back.
"Easy, kitten," he soothed as she shuddered against him. He was moving again, stumbling, until seconds later her back met the sofa and he was pulling free of her grip with a shattered groan.
It was only then that she realized he hadn't donned a condom. And she hadn't considered it. Hadn't thought about it.
"Ian." She tightened her ankles on his back. "I'm protected."
He stilled, only the thick head of his cock remaining inside her as she watched his jaw bunch.
"Protected?"
"Birth control." She swallowed tightly. "I'm protected, Ian. Don't leave me."
He shook his head, his hands clenching on her hips as she felt his cock throb imperatively.
"I haven't fucked without a condom since I was a kid," he groaned, but she heard the need, the hunger in his voice.
"Neither have I, Ian." She blinked back the sudden moisture that wanted to fill her eyes. "I want to feel you. All of you . . . Ian!" She screamed his name as he plunged inside her again. Sweat dripped from his forehead, perspiration covered her body, soaking them both, as she felt the ecstasy consume her again.
Surely she couldn't orgasm again so soon? Surely he didn't have such a hold on her?
But as she heard his harsh groan, felt the first spurt of semen fill her, she exploded again. Arching in his arms, shaking, shuddering, she gave what she had never given before, and accepted something she had never accepted before. She gave herself, and she took all of the man in her arms.
It should have been frightening. It should have terrified her, knowing what she had just opened herself to. Instead, it felt right.
When he collapsed over her, the deep shudders racking his body, matching hers, she could do nothing but hold on to him and let her tears mingle with their combined perspiration. What the hell would she do now, if she lost him?
IAN KNEW TEARS WHEN HE saw them. He knew the jerk and shudder of a woman's body when she held back her sobs. He'd known those signs for the better part of his life, but he hadn't thought he would ever see them in Kira.
He carried her to their bed, tucked her in, and got in beside her before pulling her into his arms.
He felt her fingers clench at his arm, felt her slender, lithe body as it tried to sink into his. And he had seen her eyes. In the dim light of the room he had seen the shattered realization in her gaze before she could hide it.
She was a trained operative, but she had never gone into an assignment quite like this one, against a man that her heart was involved with. The Chameleon didn't get involved. That agent couldn't be tempted, couldn't be bribed, and not just because no one knew if it was a he, a she, or a figment of someone's imagination. But because whoever, whatever it was, the Chameleon was ice. Unaffected. Unsympathetic to the enemy.
He smoothed her hair back from her face, realizing he didn't want the truth of why she was here, with him, in his bed. A part of him just didn't want to know if she was there to betray him. But he suspected it. There was guilt in his lover's eyes, and it stabbed at his heart.
"You make me forget," she finally whispered, causing him to still against her.
"Forget what?" he asked
"Who I am."
His lips quirked at her reply. "You're Kira."
"I'm more than just Kira," she whispered.
She was the Chameleon. The woman and the agent were struggling now, he had seen it in her eyes, he felt it in her responses to him. He had avoided it each time he had seen her, each time he had held her since she had come back into his life.
"Right here, there's no room for anyone but Kira," he warned her, careful to keep his voice low, to keep her close. "Don't make that mistake. Don't bring something else into this relationship."
She was silent for long moments.
"It's who I am," she finally whispered.
Ian ran his hands over her hair before pulling her head back and staring into her eyes.
"We both know better than that." He wouldn't let her believe otherwise. He couldn't. Not here. Not now. He was not going to face the Chameleon.
Ian watched as she licked her lips nervously, the way her gaze darkened with feminine uncertainty. At that moment he realized, he knew. Yeah, she had a mission. The Chameleon had been sent to him. But it was the woman he was dealing with. It was his woman.
He couldn't lie to himself any longer. Kira was here for more than a fun time in the sack, or to cover his back. She was a contract agent, the Chameleon, and he could see the battle waging in those beautiful eyes. She was there for much more than the man the woman was claiming. The agent was also there. And it was the agent's agenda he needed to know.
* * *
Fourteen
SLENDER TENDRILS OF LIGHT STREAKED across the sky as the sun began to rise over the horizon. The faint light eased the darkness that filled the bedroom and allowed Kira to ease up in the bed and stare into Ian's sleeping face.
She had known the moment he slipped into sleep, just as she knew that the slightest movement by her now would awaken him. And how she longed to move, to touch his face, to ease the lines of strain from his brow.
He had sold his soul to his father for his friends' lives. For Nathan, for Kell's lover, for the men he fought with, for a single chance to break the hold Diego Fuentes seemed to have with anyone he connected himself to, and she knew it. There was no other reason that he would risk his soul this way.
Diego was a master manipulator. She had read the secret file the director of the DHS held on him. The games the bastard had played with the DEA, the ATF, and a dozen other agencies would have been laughable were it not for the fact that he invariably won and the agreement he had with DHS protected him if he didn't. Dirty bastard. Diego knew their weakness just as well as he had known Ian's and he used it. Like a chess player laying out his pawns and moving them with insidious control throughout his little world.
And Ian was his favorite. His knight. His source of pride. His only son. And he was using him with an efficiency that bespoke his joy in this particular game. He was thwarting Sorrell, playing the U.S
. law enforcement and drug agencies, and holding his son in front of them all like a dog's favorite bone.
Kira closed her eyes at the thought. He was a stronger man than any she had known. Other men would have broken under the pressure by now, or given in. The fear that Ian would turn rogue kept the Homeland Security director up at night, she knew.
It was a heady drug, the power Ian wielded now. It wouldn't be easy for any man to walk away from. And if he didn't walk away from it, it would destroy a part of her.
She fought the hitch in her breath, the emotions that boiled inside her, seared her soul. She couldn't escape the emotions. They wouldn't let her go. They wouldn't ease. Everything inside her drew her to Ian, and had been doing so for years. But now, there was a part of herself that she didn't recognize anymore. A part of herself she hadn't realized existed until that night in Atlanta. A woman who loved.
"Stop staring at me like that," Ian ordered her, his voice its normal roughness. Sleep hadn't made it huskier or deeper.
"How long have you been awake?" She smiled as his eyes opened, thick dark blond lashes shielding the inner depths as he stared back at her.
"Long enough to figure a few things out." His hand moved beneath the sheet, sliding over her outer thigh to her hip as she felt her heart jump at the suspicion in his voice.
"What did you figure out?"
"That you're not here just for me." His lips twisted mockingly. "What are you here for?"
Kira drew back slowly. Sliding the sheet from her naked body, she started to leave the bed, only to find herself held in place by strong fingers that wrapped around her upper arm.
The problem was, no matter her orders, she was here for him. Nothing else.
She turned back to look at him, wondering if she had really portrayed such a cold, bleak image that he couldn't imagine her caring enough about him to follow him. To help him.
"Maybe I'm here for myself," she retorted, tugging at her arm.
That was the truth. She was here to assure herself he lived, that his soul survived, that he didn't do something he would regret for the rest of his life. Fuck DHS and their objectives and agendas. She wasn't there to keep Diego Fuentes alive, she was there to make certain the wicked amusement that had once gleamed in his eyes returned. She was there to share that amusement. And that was the part of herself she was so unfamiliar with. The part that needed to see more than just the cold, hard drug cartel lord. She needed to see the man again. And she needed to love him, just as she loved him now. All of him.
"I hate a liar." He sighed, his eyes narrowing on her as he tugged at her arm, dragging her back to the middle of the bed with him. "I've been giving this a lot of thought, Kira. You couldn't have had the information you did to be in that warehouse last week without help. Where did you get it?"
She rolled her eyes before leaning toward him, allowing her hair to cascade over the side of her face and enclose them in a partial curtain of darkness. No lies. No games. Just the two of them, the truth, and her silent promise to protect him.
"Martin Missern's soldiers like to party," she whispered suggestively. "Ricardo Desoto likes to talk when he gets drunk. He talked."
Desoto was one of Missern's personal soldiers within his main security force. Tall, suave, a Latin charmer with all the sophistication of an alligator on the prowl.
"And you were there?" Something angry flashed in his eyes as he tugged her close, his other hand gripping her neck and holding her in place, her breasts pressing into the tense, muscled forearm.
"She was there, Ian." The Chameleon.
Kira let her lashes drift partially closed, her voice lower sensually. "I poured his rum, smiled nice and sweet, and ran my nails down his arm as he told me everything he knew. Everything. Even Martin and Josef Missern's propensity to take Sorrell's rejects as lovers before disposing of them very quietly." Her teeth clenched as she drew in an angry breath. "And Sorrell's suggestion to them that Diego Fuentes would be much easier to handle if you were no longer a part of his little world."
Ian's lips tightened, though he released her, slowly, before rolling to the edge of the bed and sitting up. Her hands gripped his forearm, frustration eating at her that he could contain her so easily. They both knew he could shake her off like an irritating gnat if he chose.
He didn't. He stilled, his back tightening, as she inched closer, pressing her nipples against the smooth flesh and laying her lips at his ear. She could feel the sexual tension rising inside him then, as it always did when they touched, when they challenged each other.
"You want answers, Ian? You want to know why I'm here? Tell me, why did you slip into my bedroom in Atlanta? Why did you hold me down in my bed and let me glimpse heaven without the satisfaction of touching it? Did the big bad SEAL get scared of the little woman?"
She slid her arms over his shoulders and he reached up to grip her wrists.
"You want me," she reminded him. "And you hate it. Don't you, Ian?"
She knew he did. She had glimpsed that in Atlanta. His anger, the irritation and frustration in his expression each time they were around each other. The knowledge of it still held the power to hurt her. It twisted inside her and tugged stingingly at her emotions. Which she thought was totally not fair. After all, if he had to affect her so severely, why couldn't she affect him in the same way?
"You're a complication." He unwrapped her arms and rose to his feet, naked, aroused. "Nothing more."
She sat on her knees on the bed, watching him in the dim light of the rising sun as he turned and glanced at her over his shoulder.
"I'm heading to the shower," he said. "I'll meet with Deke in the sitting room while you get dressed. We need to talk before heading down to breakfast."
"About what?" Rising to her feet, Kira paced over to the robe that a helpful maid must have left lying over the cushioned chair at the bottom of the bed. Shrugging it on, she belted it before glaring back at him.
"Your role in this little debacle of an operation," he grunted in disgust. "I still can't believe I was stupid enough to be played so easily by Missern." His narrow-eyed glance of irritation wasn't lost on her.
"Oh yes, this is going to be such a hardship for you." Her smile was all teeth. He better watch out, because she knew how to bite too. "Why didn't you just ignore him, Ian? Martin may have almost gotten the first hit in, but I promise you, I would have gotten in the last."
She knew how to deal with bastards like Missern. It was men like Ian she had always had problems with.
"I should have ignored it." He shrugged, turning from her again. "As you stated, you know how to take care of yourself. But the damage has already been done."
He gave her his back and strode off, naked and buff and so male she would have creamed her nonexistent panties if she weren't so damned pissed off.
"The damage has already been done?" She rushed for the bathroom door, then turned, mortification flaming across her face as she saw him poised at the toilet. "Jeez, Ian."
She heard his smug chuckle a second before the door slammed at her back. Then the snick of the lock. The son of a bitch.
"You are so wrong!" she gritted out after the sound of the toilet flushing.
Not that he paid any attention to her. The sound of the shower finally came through the doors, causing her to pace away from the bathroom door to the closed balcony doors. She pulled them open, stepped out to the balcony, and proceeded to the doors that led to the room Daniel was staying in.
She paused outside the glass doors, peeked in, and caught Daniel's eye where he was sitting in a chair lacing his boots. Glancing to the door of the bedroom, he rose quickly, jerked his shirt from the back of the chair, and shrugged it over his shoulders before opening the door and going out to the balcony.
As the door closed behind him, Kira was in his face, hissing. "Is Durango team on the island?"
Daniel's eyes narrowed, his hand moving to button his shirt lazily as he stared down at her.
"How would I know?" he aske
d coolly.
Oh hell yes, he knew. She recognized that look on his face and that tone of voice.
"How long have they been here? And before you step over the line and lie to me, I'd remember who signs your paycheck, Mr. Calloway."
She was furious at the thought that Daniel would go behind her back and contact the team. She was even angrier to realize that he would have had to go behind her back to find out enough about this operation to think they were needed.
He blew out a hard breath. "I don't lie to you, Kira, so can the 'Mr. Calloway' crap and the threats. I suspect they're here, but I don't know where, and I'm not bothering to find out. Extra security wouldn't hurt any of us."
"You suspected and you didn't tell me?" She glanced quickly back to the room she shared with Ian. "He knows they're here, Daniel. And if they're here, there's only one reason for it. To take him out."
"Has he gone rogue?" The question was a legitimate one, she knew.
"Hell no, he hasn't gone rogue, nor is he a traitor. Ian doesn't have a rogue bone in his body and you know it. But that's not the point. The point is, he can't afford even the slightest hint that he isn't rogue. What the hell are they thinking to come in here like this?" She kept her voice low, so low that she knew Daniel was reading lips more than actually hearing the words. "Do you think DHS isn't covering his ass? I knew it when they sent me in to protect Diego. They won't admit it, but trust me, Daniel, Ian is sanctioned."
"Have you seen them?" he asked her carefully.
She shot her bodyguard an irritated glare. "You know better than that."
"Has he?"
She shook her head quickly.
"Then don't worry about them. If they're here, they're here for their own reasons. Let's see what happens."
And he had still kept from saying, one way or the other, if he was in any way involved in their arrival.
"Warn them." Her smile was icy. "To make damned sure they don't put him in harm's way. Damned sure, Daniel. Or a lot of heads are going to roll. Do you understand me?" His would be one of them. "Anything happens to Ian, and I swear to you, as God is my witness, they'll pay for it."