"Sounds like the Macey I know." She kept her voice as soft as his, barely more than a breath.
"Reno and Clint will be in the house with Daniel. Kell is most likely skulking around the grounds, watching and waiting. Hell, that bastard could be hanging from the balcony and you wouldn't know it until it was too late. We didn't call him the Cajun Gator for nothing, you know."
"What are Reno and Clint doing?" she asked, desperate to hear that affection, that loyalty that she was certain he had no idea he was revealing.
"Reno is plotting." His arms tightened around her. "Macey is relaying our location, trying to home in with that special mic he has to hear what we're saying, but the jammer in the bedroom is interfering. I bet he's pissed over that. Reno's trying to figure out how to make contact without compromising the team, or me. Clint is going over the information they have, trying to anticipate my next move, figure out where to waylay me. He was at Coronado's earlier tonight, in disguise, watching for me. He's probably cussing me. Reno is brooding. Reno can be worrisome when he broods." Regret shimmered in his voice. "I've managed to avoid them. It won't be sitting well with them."
She stared at the villa, at the point where Macey was watching with the lens. "You're going to contact them, aren't you?"
He nipped her ear, drawing a soft exclamation from her.
"You know he reads lips, you little minx," he growled before his tongue laved over the little sting.
"Why keep them wondering?"
"Because they're sticking their noses where they don't belong." Anger thickened his voice now. "Reno's wife, Raven, just had her baby. The boy, Morgan, is no more than a few weeks old. Reno worked his ass off for a three-month leave so he could be there. So he could bond with the boy. Clint's newly married. Just a few months. He came back from his honeymoon early to head out here. Kell postponed his marriage to Emily, did you know that?"
She shook her head. She hadn't known they had set a date.
"I better get my invitation." She frowned. "She promised I could be a bridesmaid."
"If you live long enough?" His lips pressed against her neck for a long, agonized moment before he pulled away from her.
Kira turned and watched as he leaned a hip against the rail, his arms crossing over his chest as he glared down at her. He wasn't angry with her. Concerned. He was irritated and just as aware as she was that things would come to a head soon.
"I had Sorrell's missile boys killed this afternoon." He sighed wearily. "They're going after Ascarti before dawn."
Kira blew out a rough breath. "Ascarti was suspected to know his identity, though there's never been confirmation of it."
"I got my confirmation today. A man doesn't lie when he has a live wire hooked to his balls." His voice wasn't hard enough to hide the self-disgust in his tone. "I told Antoli to kill them after he was certain he had all the information he could get. A single shot between the eyes."
"Did you have any other choice?" He hadn't, but to hear the anger and the pain in his voice at his decision eased something inside her.
"There are always choices, Kira." He shook his head at the question. "It was the simplest way to show Sorrell I meant business. Anything else wouldn't have blipped his little radar."
"Then you couldn't do anything else." She shrugged. "They weren't men, Ian. They were monsters. They dealt in death daily, it just happened to have finally caught up with them."
"There is no guilt, don't fool yourself." He grunted, his expression tightening now. "Anger perhaps. A lot of it directed at myself. I've let this game go on too long. It's time to finish it."
"So you're going to do something that will bring Sorrell out of the woodwork. Ascarti isn't it. If he was, then someone would have tried it before. Think about this, Ian. I know you want to keep them out of it, but hold off taking Ascarti until you talk to the others. Work with them. If they didn't have something of value to add to this, they wouldn't be trying to contact you rather than just watching you. You know this as well as I do."
He blew out a rough breath. "Macey's tried to contact me through the secured sat phone for days."
She could see it in his eyes. He knew they had something, knew they wouldn't be so insistent unless it were of vital importance. They would have merely watched and waited, backed him however they could.
"I didn't want them involved in this," he said then. "I didn't want you in it."
"They're you're friends. Did you really think you could convince them you had gone rogue? They aren't stupid, Ian."
"I wouldn't be the first that's stepped out for a life of crime." He grimaced in disgust. "Happens often."
"Not to you. You don't threaten, you defend. They know that. If you wanted to convince them you were all bad and evil then maybe you should have started before the Atlanta operation."
He grunted at that before he pulled his cell phone from the clip at his waist and hit the programmed button to Antoli's cell.
Ian didn't like admitting she was right, she knew that. And he sure as hell didn't like letting Durango team in on his operation. Not because he was its leader, but because Ian felt the risk was his alone, and no one else's.
"Delay the grab," Ian ordered into the phone, his gaze locked with hers, a brooding frown pulling at his brows. "I'll contact you at dawn with further orders."
Seconds later he disconnected the call and shook his head wearily.
"We'll slip over to the villa in two hours," he told her. "Dress to blend in with the night and I'll let Deke know that we'll be out."
She started to nod. Ian's hand cupped around her neck, as the opposite arm hooked around her waist and dragged her against his body. His lips came down on her with a hunger that seared her. His tongue drove between her lips, tasted her, then a hungry growl rumbled in his throat as he began to gorge himself on the kiss.
All thoughts of meeting with Durango team or even breathing became overwhelmed by the sheer, fiery pleasure of his touch.
It was always like this. He could steal her mind with a single hungry look and sear her senses with the lightest touch. He was her addiction, and she prayed to God she never had to go without a fix.
"When this is over." He drew back just enough to speak, then took another, short hungry kiss. "When it's over, we'll discuss your habit of poking your nose into my business."
"Okay," she agreed readily, as her arms tightened around his neck to bring his lips back to hers.
Another sharp, stinging kiss and he pulled away, staring down at her, his gaze burning into hers, hungry and intense. And angry. She could see the emotions roiling inside him, tearing at him. She could feel them. They whipped in the air around her, burned through her soul.
"What else is going on, Ian?" she asked, lifting her hand to touch his roughened cheek. "What happened with Diego in the study?"
He moved farther away from her, his gaze breaking away as he stared out into the distance, his expression becoming hard, set.
"Nothing happened," he growled. "We head out in two hours. Make certain you're ready or I'll leave you here with Deke."
"No." She caught his arm as he turned to go. "Don't close up on me like this, Ian. Tell me what's going on."
His bicep flexed beneath her hold, tightening dangerously as he stared down at her.
"Nothing that applies to this mission," he informed her, his rough voice bleak, the almost ruined quality of it grating. "Nothing that applies to anything but regret, Kira. And that's something I can't deal with right now. We'll deal with that one when it's over."
He pulled from her grasp and moved back to the bedroom as Kira followed him, her heart aching, her need to alleviate his pain, or at least a part of it, thickening her throat.
"We have two hours," she told him, moving to his back, her hands flattening against it before smoothing around his waist.
She laid her head on his back, feeling the tension growing inside him. "We could spare a few minutes."
"Do you think a few minutes are all I need with you?" He
caught her hands as they trailed to the band of his slacks. "Never enough, Kira."
"Then a few dozen minutes." She grinned up at him as he turned, the low lamp on the nightstand shadowing his dark, savagely honed features.
"You don't want this from me right now." His hands gripped her arms, his hold tight as the anger came to the surface and burned in his eyes. "Stand back, Kira."
"Why?" She would be damned if she would stand back. "So you can maintain that cold, hard shield you place so much stock in. Tell me, Ian, doesn't it ever get lonely in there, all by yourself?"
His lips flattened. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" She smiled back at him mockingly. "You have to do everything alone. The team you have with you, you had no loyalties to before this assignment. They're not important to you. Nothing in this deal is important to you except the end result. No one or nothing can be used against you, can it, Ian. Even me."
His face hardened further. "Unfortunately, you can be," he ground out. "You made certain of it."
Shock resounded through her, parting her lips at the emotion that gathered in his voice, in his expression. Like a veil lifting to reveal the soul of the man that she had only sensed before. She saw him. Tortured, hungry, aching.
"Damn you," he suddenly cursed, jerking her to him, his hands pulling at the elastic waist of the silk capris. Material ripped, shredded, the sound of it an erotic hiss as he growled. "I told you. I warned you. You didn't want me like this."
"I want you any way I can get you," Kira gasped, feeling his hand hook in the neckline of her blouse. Buttons scattered and the cloth tore, the shreds pulled from her and tossed aside. "Ian, you keep tearing my clothes."
"Fuck the clothes." His lips went to her neck as he lifted her into his arms, dragging her breasts over the material of his shirt as he moved to the bed. "I'll buy you more."
He tossed her to the mattress, following quickly, coming over her and stealing her lips in another of those soul-destroying kisses. Hard and deep, his tongue licked through her mouth, his lips moving on hers, slanting over them. The heat of it burned into her brain, the need rose with such violent intensity that she felt buffeted by it.
He didn't bother to undress. One hand locked her wrists together, holding them over her head, as the other tore at his belt and the clasp of his slacks. The zipper slid down as he used his knees to push her thighs apart, and within seconds, the engorged head of his cock was pressing inside her.
He didn't take her easy. He didn't take her slow. With a muttered curse and a desperate growl he forged inside her, pushing through the snug tissue and slick juices until he was seated to the hilt.
Pleasure tore through Kira. Nerve endings fired with brilliant, intense sensation and throbbed with the need for more. Her clit was swollen and desperate, the muscles of her pussy clenched and tightening on his erection.
"Being inside you is like heaven," he groaned as his head fell to her shoulder, his lips brushing over it in hunger. "Like being surrounded by silken fire."
His hips flexed, stroking his cock inside her, rubbing the thick crest into nerve endings so sensitive that the friction stole her breath.
"Hold me, Kira." His voice was so rough, so low, she barely made out the words. "God help me, hold on to me."
She froze for an instant. Just an instant, long enough to allow the broken emotion in his voice to register in her brain. The need she could feel tightening his body, not just sexual need, something more, something darker and bolder than mere lust. Something he was trying to hide from himself.
Her arms tightened around his neck as one of his hands clasped her hip, the other her wrists. He held his weight from crushing her by one elbow as his hips began to move.
These weren't deliberate, sensual strokes. They were mindless, primal. It wasn't just the climax he was reaching for, and the intensity of that primitive hunger tore through her senses. She could feel him. She had never felt another man clear to her soul this way. Had never felt anything that deep.
But it was where he touched her. He fucked into her with desperation, his cock burying inside her repeatedly, stroking the flames of hunger and need higher, hotter. Pleasure fed emotion. Sensation fed need until Kira exploded in orgasm with a power that sent shards of brilliant light exploding behind her eyelids.
"Damn you," he cursed her, his voice more broken than normal, his body shuddering as he continued to thrust through his own release. A release that spilled inside her rather than a condom, that extended the waves of pleasure racing through her. "Damn you for doing this to me."
She held on to him tighter, feeling more than his words were saying. Yes, he damned her, and sometimes she damned herself for pushing into his operation. They had each managed to protect their hearts until now. The only difference between them was that Kira was tired of fighting. She belonged to him, and she wouldn't deny it.
"I love you, Ian." Gasping, reeling from the pleasure, she made the vow again. "I love you."
"Damn you."
She couldn't help but smile. Sadly. With a sense of hope and an awareness of the danger she had placed them both in. Ian's emotions were involved now, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Now, they both had a weakness.
* * *
Twenty-two
SHE WAS UNDER HIS SKIN, in his soul, and there was no way to get her out. Ian covered her as they slipped from the villa and made their way over the stone fence to the villa Kira had leased for the summer. He made certain her back wasn't vulnerable, that no one saw her black-clad shadowy form from the house.
He was more concerned with her protection than he was his own. In keeping her safe rather than in advancing the mission as quickly as possible.
Son of a bitch, he had known this would happen. Known she would become so important to him that he wouldn't see her as an equal, or as a partner. All he saw when he saw her was silken flesh and passionate cries. How she held on to him when he loved her, how she shuddered in release in his arms.
She was breaking his heart and she didn't even know it. Breaking down shields he had begun erecting in that bleak desert landscape more than twenty years ago, and had strengthened throughout the successive years. Shields that protected him against loss, that stilled the hunger inside him for something more, something deeper than any relationship he had ever had before.
They were crumpling now, shattering beneath each touch, each whispered cry in his ear that she loved him. A part of him gloried in them, the other part fought frantically to rebuild defenses that were already shattered beyond repair. Because all he could think about was life without her. If Sorrell managed to kill her, if he took her, if something happened to take her away from him.
The bleak existence he had known before her would be too dark, too brutal to bear.
After crossing the stone fence they crouched side by side, surveying the darkened landscape carefully. He had ordered the Fuentes guards to stay clear of Kira and her bodyguard, and his orders were normally obeyed to the letter. The blood he had shed in the beginning of his rule of the Fuentes cartel had ensured that.
But every now and then Diego managed to secure a soldier's loyalty to him instead. He couldn't be sure they weren't being watched, but he knew they weren't being followed. Deke would be watching for spies though, and if they were out there, he would have the report when Ian returned.
"It's clear," Kira whispered, turning until her face was directly below his. "He's pulled Macey and Kell back if they were out here."
"They were out here," he murmured. "Kell's still out here, trust me."
He stared at her upturned face, the delicate features, her unusually colored eyes, and felt his heart clench again before he looked around carefully.
Now wasn't the time to become mesmerized by the woman at his side. She was his partner here, she demanded nothing less. He would cover her to the best of his ability, and that meant making certain his senses stayed on alert.
The night vision goggles he wore pick
ed up everything but a sign of human life. Kell was getting better. The last time they had practiced stealth, Ian had been able to track him easily.
"Stay close to the wall," he ordered. "Move around until we reach the back of the house; there's enough foliage cover there to keep us in shadow and night vision can't see through stone."
She nodded as she bent to a half crouch and began moving carefully along the side of the wall.
Her pert little butt was right below his face and he felt sweat bead his forehead. That particular part of her anatomy had the ability to make his dick swell impossibly hard, despite the release he had experienced less than two hours before.
Shaking his head and turning, he swept the area again, paying particular attention to the top of the wall and the branches of the trees that grew along the side of the estate.
Within minutes they paused directly across from the veranda doors, hidden by the wall at their backs and the staggered landscaping of the yard.
Using hand signals, he directed the route for her, then watched, his weapon held steady in his hand, as she crossed half the distance and ducked behind the huge cement fountain. Pausing, she swept the area before turning back to him and holding her own weapon ready.
Ian moved quickly to her position, then, staying close to her back, pushed her toward the veranda door that had been left open.
Of course the team was expecting them and he had no doubt Kell was covering their back the whole way. He and Macey. Ian could feel it, felt the security and the sense of teamwork that had always followed him on the missions they were assigned to work together.
They moved quickly onto the sheltered veranda, straightened and stepped into the open breakfast room it was attached to.
Handguns held ready at their sides, Ian went in first, moving quickly to the side, bringing up the gun at the sight of the figure standing still, arms held out from his side, as Kira swept in low.
"The house is secure," Clint informed them, his voice quiet. "Come into the sitting room. Kell and Macey will be in as soon as they sweep for any lagging shadows."