He moved quickly from his seat, paced to the other side of the room, and tipped the glass to his lips.
"So many mistakes," he whispered once he had consumed the liquid. "So many times I wished I could go back." He shook his head then. "I see my son, grown, a man of honor slowly dying inside as he runs this business." He set the glass on the low marble-topped table beside him and ran his fingers through his unbound hair, keeping his back to her as he stared at the curtained window. "It is almost finished, is it not? He will leave when Sorrell has been dealt with." He turned to her, staring at her questioningly.
"Ian hasn't revealed his plans to me, Mr. Fuentes. He hasn't said one way or the other."
He nodded again. "He will leave."
Kira lowered her head, feeling the pain coming in waves from a man who suddenly seemed the least likely of drug lords.
"Marika, she raised a son to be proud of," he said then, turning to face her once again. "A son to make a man regret, and to make a man wish he were strong enough to give his son the only thing he wants from his father."
"What does Ian want from you?" she asked.
Bitterness tipped his lips. "My death, Miss Porter. Nothing would make Ian happier than to see me leave this world forever."
"Or to see you stop feeling sorry for yourself before this meeting." Ian stepped into the room, his voice low but lashing. He strode to the decanter, poured himself a drink, and tipped it back before speaking again. "Garcia has the soldiers in place and everything's quiet for now. Kira and I are going to rest until dark. Send Deke up to the room if you need me."
Kira rose to her feet, hearing the cool, steady tone of his guttural voice, aware that he must have heard much more than Diego's last statement.
"Of course I will," Diego said, a shade of sarcasm filling his voice now. "I but live to serve you now, do I not."
Ian's jaw clenched as he glanced at Kira, then back to Diego.
"It seems to me that you just live to piss me off at times like this," he growled. "I can't afford to have you drunk, Diego. I need you sober and aware tonight."
"You have never seen me drunken," Diego snapped then. "Do not give your woman the impression that I am worse than what I am, Ian. I am no drunkard."
"I didn't think you were suicidal either," Ian stated mockingly. "I hope you'd at least stick around long enough to see this through."
Kira saw the anger glittering in Diego's eyes then, the dim light from the foyer gleaming on the pitch-black of his eyes.
"I always see it through, Ian," he reminded his son roughly. "If I do nothing else, I see all things through."
With that, he stalked across the room, brushed by his son, and made his way quickly through the foyer.
Kira watched Ian as Diego left, the way his shoulders seemed to tense further, his expression tightening more.
"He's not the only one that wants to get drunk," Ian muttered. "Come on, let's go upstairs."
He didn't touch her. He didn't grip her wrist and drag her into the foyer and up the stairs. Instead, he stepped back to the doorway and watched her broodingly.
Kira moved ahead of him, taking the steps quickly and heading to his bedroom suite. She turned to face him once again as he closed and locked the door, then waited until he stepped to the bureau, set his security, and stood staring at the electronics in the drawer for long seconds before closing it and turning back to face her.
He pushed his fingers through his hair, in the same manner that Diego had done earlier. The dark blond strands framed the heavy expression on his face, brushed his shoulders, and tempted her to run her own fingers through it.
"It's almost over," he said then, staring around the room before returning his gaze to her. "Almost over."
She moved to him then, because he should have sounded triumphant, eager to see the finish, he should have been anticipating the end of this night, but she could feel his regret as well.
Not because he would be leaving the cartel, she thought. Instead, she felt the heavy knowledge inside him that things weren't as he thought they were.
He wouldn't say it, she could only pray he would realize it before the night was over, but she knew he was realizing there was more than the monster inside Diego Fuentes.
"I came here to kill him." His voice was soft as he stared back at her. "He was going to rape those girls he kidnapped. He drugged them, one of them died. He allowed his men to rape another in front of her father. He tortured Nathan. He's killed, destroyed lives. He won't stop. Letting him live won't stop the hell he spreads."
Kira inhaled roughly. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to relieve the pain that he wouldn't admit even to himself that he felt?
"Ian—"
"Son of a bitch, Kira." His expression twisted, his eyes burning. "I see what he wants me to believe, but I know what he is. He'll never stop. That fucking whore's dust he created has destroyed women. The videos he made from them. Those were innocent women. Women who had nothing to do with his games or this world. Those girls he kidnapped. The blood he's fucking shed."
He swung away from her as she felt the first tear fall from her own eyes. She saw what Diego wanted to be, and Ian saw what he was. The contradiction would tear Ian apart if he let it.
"It's not your place to kill him," she reminded him. "Arrest him. Take him in, Ian. Let DHS deal with him. Don't place this on your soul."
She moved to him, her arms sliding around him as she laid her head on his back. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't let him destroy you too."
He inhaled sharply, his hands pressing against hers, holding them close to his body before he turned, surrounded her with his hold, and laid his cheek against her head.
"It's my responsibility," he said, his voice heavy.
"No—" she tried to protest, but his finger pressed against her lips, his tortured gaze locked with hers.
"I have to do what I came here to do," he told her. "He's not my father, Kira. A father doesn't murder. He doesn't allow his men to rape sixteen-year-old girls, and he doesn't torture good men. That's not a father, that's a monster."
She laid her head against his chest, because she knew that. She knew what he was, and she knew DHS would allow it to continue in exchange for the information he provided. But it didn't stop her heart from breaking, for Ian, for Diego, for herself. Because she knew if she stood in his way, he would never forgive her. And if she didn't, the ramifications of what DHS could do to retaliate terrified her.
"You terrify me," Ian whispered then, his hand cupping her jaw to raise her face to his. "I knew Sorrell would find a way to use you against me in this. I knew it, and I let you stay anyway."
"Because you know I'm good." She sniffed, trying to smile, to lighten the pain she knew was flowing through both of them.
"You're very good," he agreed, a hungry flame lighting his gaze. "Too damned good."
"I can be better." She needed to touch him, to hold him, just one more time, she needed to show him how much of her soul he owned.
"Really?" he questioned her suggestively as she drew back from his chest slowly.
Taking his hand she moved for the bedroom. "Shall I show you?"
"I'm all about show-and-tell," he assured her, lust beginning to make his voice huskier, raspier. Sexier.
She cast him a sensual look over her shoulder, her lashes lowered, her tongue peeking out to touch her lips suggestively.
"I can show-and-tell," she promised him, stepping away from him as they went into the bedroom, and turning to face him as she slid her blazer from her shoulders and tossed it to a nearby chair.
The shoulder holster was unclipped and placed on top of the jacket before she sat, unlaced her boots, and pulled them from her feet.
Ian's eyes were burning with hunger now. His tortured emotions were receding beneath the arousal. When she came to her feet, gripped the hem of her shirt, and pulled it from her body, he jerked into action. Clothes were tossed to the side, littering the floor, crumpled and left to
wrinkle as he pulled her naked body against his own.
Sensitive nerve endings screamed in sensation as he lifted her to him and his hair-roughened chest rasped against her nipples. The peaks hardened almost painfully as the blood thundered to them and a gasp left her throat as their lips met in hunger and desperate need.
She was only barely aware of falling to the bed, but she was very much aware of Ian's larger body covering hers. That wasn't what she wanted. She wanted him stretched out for her pleasure now, wanted to watch that muscular, hard body tight and straining for release as he had watched her softer one.
With her lips still melded to his, stinging kisses raging between them, she managed to wriggle from beneath him, pushing at his shoulders, nipping at his lips, and silently demanding that he roll to his back.
He pulled her with him as he did, draping her over his chest as one hand slid into the fall of her hair that cascaded over her shoulder, the other playing up and down her back, stroking the fires burning inside her higher, hotter.
She was burning alive for him now. She needed him. Needed him inside her, wrapped around her, needed one last memory of his touch and his love to sustain her in the future.
Just in case. Just in case he walked away once he learned how she had deceived him.
Kira pulled her head back, forcing her eyes open as she stared down at him, seeing the brick-red flush along his dark cheekbones, the glitter of lust in his tobacco eyes, and the need in his expression.
He needed her, needed her touch and her love just as much as she needed his. It wasn't a one-way street; they met, they fit together.
"What are you going to do now?" His lips quirked as he stared back at her, his lashes lowered sensually over his eyes.
"You're mine." Her hands flattened against his chest. "I claim you, Ian. Do you know that?"
Something else flared in his gaze then. Possessiveness, satisfaction, and more. As though the claim were a pleasure itself.
"No less than I claim you, Kira." His voice throbbed with demand. "You're a part of me that I never want to lose."
She knew the emotions she had glimpsed in his eyes then. Her chest clenched with them, her womb flexed, and a sense of belonging swept over her with the power of an orgasm. It lit fires inside her that hadn't been there before. Fires that flamed brighter, hotter than ever before and built the arousal to an almost painful degree.
"I need to touch you." A soft cry filled her words as her head lowered to his neck, her tongue stroking over it as his often did hers. "I need to feel you all the way to my soul, Ian."
He tensed violently beneath her, his eyes dilating in response to her ragged cry as her lips nibbled at his chin, stroked back down his neck. She slid down his body, feeling the sheen of sweat beginning to form on his flesh as the raging length of his cock pressed against her thigh.
"Baby, any time you want it," he groaned. "Any time you want me, I'm yours."
If only that were true.
Her lips moved to the hard, flat disc of a male nipple. Her tongue played with it, the salty taste of his flesh exploding against her taste buds as her nails raked down his arms.
She loved his body. The hardness of it, the way the tough, lean muscles flexed and rippled beneath her touch. The way perspiration gleamed on sun-darkened flesh and the scattering of chest hair rasped over her palms and her nipples.
She loved stroking him. Loved the way his eyes narrowed on her and pleasure gleamed in their fiery brown depths.
Her lips moved from one hard male nipple to the other. Her tongue licked over it before she drew it into her mouth and felt it harden further.
Her pussy was weeping with need. She could feel her juices gathering and falling to slicken the swollen lips. Her clit was engorged, throbbing. So desperate that as Kira played the temptress on Ian's nipples she rubbed the desperate knot of flesh against his thigh where she straddled it.
Hard male hands bunched in her hair as she moaned, rocking against his thigh and nibbling at the tight flesh before licking the hard little point.
Her clit raked over tough, hair-spattered flesh and her juices dampened his thigh. The world began to recede as pleasure began to rock through her.
"You're like silk and satin, Kira." His hard, gravelly voice was a different stroke of pleasure. "Silky mouth, satiny pussy. Wet and sweet for me."
She whispered a cry over his chest as she began to move lower. She had to taste him. Needed to fill her mouth with the male strength and hunger beneath her.
"I love touching you." The breathless words whispered past her lips without thought. "I love feeling you like this. So hard and powerful."
She licked at his hard abdomen, raked her teeth over it, skirting the throbbing head of his cock as his hands pulled at her hair.
Tiny streaks of fiery sensation exploded along her scalp as his hips flexed and the engorged cock head stroked along her cheek.
Oh, she knew what he wanted, what she wanted. All of it. Every sensual touch of pleasure wrung from both their bodies.
Her tongue peeked out, raked along the crest, and a muttered groan left his lips. The hard stalk of flesh throbbed and pounded with need as she moved lower.
She licked over the tight flesh, but didn't linger. As she moved between his thighs, her gaze fastened on the tight, hard spheres that had drawn up tight beneath the hard shaft.
Dark blond male hairs stroked her chin as she placed her tongue at the line that separated his balls from his cock. He jerked beneath her, a low groan vibrating in his chest as she licked sensually, enjoying the male taste against her lips, power and lust and salty spice.
"Kira, baby, you're pushing control here." His voice was so husky, so raspy it was like sandpaper in the sensual silence of the room.
"Should I restrain you?" She smiled as she laid a kiss at the base of his cock, then let her teeth rake the area with the utmost gentleness.
He almost snarled in pleasure. The sound had her womb spasming as her pussy clenched with the need to surround his cock.
"Maybe I should restrain you," he groaned. "You couldn't destroy a man's control then."
"If you restrained me, I couldn't do this." She laid her lips along the side of the tight sac, opened them, and sucked the flesh into her mouth. Her tongue stroked, probed, and her mouth suckled sensually as his thighs tensed beside her face.
He liked it. Hell, he might even love it.
Using her suckling mouth, the gentle rasp of teeth, and her lashing tongue, she explored the violently tense sac, feeling the ripples of response in the hard length of his cock and the muscles of his thighs.
"You're going to mess me up with this," he protested, but the hard hands in her hair held her to him. "Hell, you're going to knock yourself out of getting that sweet pussy ate. Do you want to do that?"
"You can dine later." She smiled against his balls. "This time, it's my turn."
She moved higher, licking along the tight flesh of his erection until she reached the crest. Until she could surround it with her mouth and suck it in. Her tongue played, she sucked, moaned, and felt her pussy gushing with slick dampness.
The taste of precum against her tongue had her moaning in hunger. The feel of his hands pulling at her hair, his muscles tightening further beneath her, warned her that his control would end soon.
She looked up at his face, saw the sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared down at her, small rivulets moving along the side of his face as his jaw clenched, his teeth bared.
She tongued the hard cock head, sucked it deep and felt it throb at the back of her throat before her own body forced the end of her play.
If she didn't have him inside her, she wouldn't survive. If she didn't feel the thick, iron-hard flesh filling her, then she might implode from the pressure.
"Come on, baby," he groaned as she moved up his body, one hand moving from her hair to grip her thigh and move it over his body as she straddled his hips. "Give us both what we need."
She whimpered as the engorged
crest tucked between the swollen lips of her pussy. Gazing into his eyes, she felt her juices wash from her body, coating his cock head, preparing it to stretch and possess.
"You know what's going to happen," he warned her tightly. "I can't take you easy."
"If I wanted easy," she panted. "I wouldn't have followed you."
His hands gripped her hips as he suddenly shifted, his hips plunging up, driving his cock halfway inside her as her back bowed and a throttled scream left her throat.
"Fuck, feel how tight you are, Kira," he snarled. "So tight and hot over my cock you're burning me alive."
Her head tossed, her lips parted to draw in air as she locked her eyes with his.
"Not enough." She could barely breathe for the pleasure, the hunger. "Not enough."
She could feel the perspiration running over her breasts, feel her juices flowing through her pussy as it stretched to accommodate the girth filling it.
"I have more, sweetheart," he crooned roughly. "God, do I have more for you."
He retreated, pulled back, his hands tightening at her hips. As she felt him gather to plunge inside her again, she tightened the muscles of her pussy and thrust down.
Their cries mingled, wove together, as the force of each movement plunged his erection to the hilt inside her.
There was no stopping her now, and there was no stopping him. Straining, thrusting upward, he fucked into her with hard, powerful strokes and she moved with him, riding him hard, pushing herself to take all the pleasure she could gather.
His hands bit into her hips. Her clit rasped against his pelvis as she leaned forward, her hands bracing on his chest, and a second later, everything inside her exploded.
She screamed his name, because she couldn't hold it back. She heard her name echo around her as she disintegrated.
The orgasm was violent, clenching the muscles of her pussy around his suddenly spurting cock as his seed jetted inside her. Her womb spasmed, rippled, and pleasure detonated there as well. Her clit burst with sensation as her orgasm echoed and built throughout her body until it exploded in one last fiery conflagration and flung her into a world of star-studded night and rapturous color.