By the time they reached the docks he was wondering if he’d have to carry her. The Martha Rose carried coffee beans and maize, and he suspected a hidden cargo of coca, but that was none of his concern. All he cared about was getting Beth, and Dylan, to some form of safety.
She gave out when they reached the gangplank to the ship, and he scooped her up, ignoring her futile struggles. He carried her through the narrow corridors to the tiny cabin, kicking the door open and setting her down on the narrow berth. She tried to sit up, but he simply shoved her back down with a bit too much enthusiasm, and she stayed put.
“Yeah, I know,” he said in a rough voice. “What you need most is not to have to look at me. Dylan and I have the room next door, and if you need anything just knock on the wall. We’re sailing at midnight, and I can bring you food if you want . . .”
“Bathroom,” she said in a hoarse voice.
He hadn’t even thought of it. “You’re in luck sweetheart. You have the one and only en suite on the entire ship. Even the captain has to share.” She was off the bunk before he’d finished speaking, and a moment later the door was slammed shut in his face.
He didn’t wait to hear her start retching. He closed the door quietly behind him, then paused, leaning his forehead against the door for a long, empty moment, before going in search of Dylan.
Beth sank down on the bathroom floor. It was tiny – there as barely enough room for her, but she didn’t care if she had to wrap herself around the toilet. She couldn’t stand any longer. Couldn’t be around MacGowan any longer. She was filled with shame, horror and disgust, mostly with herself. It wasn’t so much a traditional bathroom as a wet room, and she turned on the shower spray, yanking off her clothes. Her underwear was stiff, and she remembered why as heat flushed her body and she began to shake again.
She could put everything in order, mentally, when she had time to breathe again. She’d shower, put on clean clothes and lie down on the bed. It would take time, but eventually her jumbled, insane reactions would make sense to her.
She showered quickly, knowing the water supply on a ship like this wouldn’t be endless. The towel was threadbare but clean, and the one small suitcase Finn had allowed her was sitting in the tiny room. She dressed quickly, certain her familiar clothes would bring a measure of security back to her.
She was wrong.
She had no strength. Her legs were shaking, barely able to hold her up, and her hands could barely manage the zipper to her baggy jeans. Baggier now, after the days of erratic provisions. Which didn’t matter; there wasn’t a woman alive who wasn’t happier ten pounds lighter. She just managed to crawl into the bunk, closing her eyes as she felt the slight rocking of the boat.
She should have warned him about her seasickness, but there hadn’t really been time. At least she had a room of her own to be sick in. What was another five or six days with an empty stomach? She’d look like a fashion model when she arrived in Spain. She needed to concentrate on that, not on all the blank, staring eyes she’d seen this day. All the men MacGowan had killed. It was too dark a horror to face, and she’d rather sleep and avoid it, avoid everything.
And she did, drifting in and out, glad of at least a few hours before they set out on the ocean. The cabin was stuffy, but she couldn’t stop shivering, and she burrowed under the blankets. What in God’s name was wrong with her? She could blame it on the violence, the death, the blood, the stink and sweat of it all. But that had nothing to do with the fierce rush of heat that had taken her when Finn was . . .
She shouldn’t be thinking about it. But pushing it away wasn’t working; she needed to put it all in perspective. It had to be the desperate nature of the situation. Death had been so close, and it was no wonder that some kind of life-affirming emotion had swept through her. That was all sex was, after all. The most elemental creation of life.
She was lying to herself and she knew it. It hadn’t been anything that pure or intellectual. It had been raw need. Maybe this was simply the female variant of the male’s need for sexual conquest in the face of death. Maybe a female needed to be taken.
She moaned, burying her face in the pillow. She was full of shit. Temporary insanity, brought about by stress. Temporary insanity that was lingering. She was shivering, but her skin felt hot inside her clothes, and she wanted his hands on her. She, who had never really wanted anyone in her life, wanted MacGowan to finish what he started.
It would pass. That was the definition of the disease – it was temporary, and it would be over. In the meantime, seasickness seemed an almost welcome diversion, and she looked forward to it.
Six hours later she’d changed her mind. Six hours later she would have put up with the tender attentions of the real Alcista rather than the dry heaves that were plaguing her. She could hear the rain beating against the porthole, feel the rough seas bounce beneath them, and she stifled the moan that was a far cry from what she’d been feeling earlier. She’d managed to drag herself to and from the bathroom at regular intervals, using the wastebasket as a substitute in between, but she wasn’t sure she could manage the crawl back into the berth. She lay on the floor, panting, hating the ocean, hating MacGowan, hating everything under the sun.
She heard the soft knock at the door, not for the first time, and she ignored it as the ship took a sudden lurch. “Sister Beth,” came Finn’s laid-back voice. “We’re going to have to talk about it.”
“Go away!” She kept her voice steady. At least she’d had the sense to lock the door. MacGowan was not the epitome of sensitivity, and she doubted he’d listen to polite excuses. The locked door would take care of it.
“Now, darlin’,” he said in a deliberately beguiling voice that she didn’t believe for a minute. “You can’t just keep ignoring it. Let me in, we’ll talk about it, and then we never have to think about it again.”
Fat chance, she thought, curling in on herself, her arms clasped to her stomach. Talking would only make it worse. She was perfectly capable of ignoring those moments in the horrible apartment, pretending it never happened. At least she would be once she was on solid land again, once she was able to even contemplate eating something, once she’d gotten away from the ridiculous temptation that was Finn MacGowan.
In the meantime she was going to suffer in private. As long as she could flush the toilet and splash her face and mouth with cold water she’d survive. Seasickness never killed anyone.
“Let me in,” MacGowan said again, his voice no longer so beguiling. She didn’t bother answering. Let him see what it was like to be ignored.
He shook the door knob. “Are you going to open it?”
There was no missing the threat in his voice. “Go fuck yourself,” she said, burying her face against the scrubbed wooden floor.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One that she choked on, when he proceeded to slam his body against the door, breaking the flimsy lock so that the door was flung open.
“Jesus H. Christ, Beth,” he muttered, kneeling down beside her. He scooped her up in his arms, and the sudden move only made her dizziness worse. Lucky for him her stomach was empty, or she would have proceeded to decorate him with its contents. He sat down on the bed, still holding her, and she was too sick and weary to fight it. She simply sank against him, her bones melting as every last bit of energy left her.
“Why didn’t you say something, you idiot?” he whispered in her ear.
“Wouldn’t do any good,” she muttered. He smelled good. Better than she did, at least, and she breathed in his scent. Sun-warmed skin, clean male sweat, something that was indefinably Finn MacGowan. She felt rather than heard someone else enter the room, and for a moment she stiffened, suddenly back in that filthy apartment, until she heard Dylan’s voice.
“Dude, is she okay?”
“Just seasick. It’ll pass.”
“No, it won’t,” she moaned.
“She’s not gonna die, is she?”
“Yes,” she said.
/>
“No.” Heartless bastard. “Once we get some food in her she’ll feel a thousand times better.”
“I hate you,” she said weakly.
“Of course you do, baby,” he said with disgusting cheer. “Go see if you can get me some chicken soup, some crackers, and a bottle of whiskey.”
“Should she have whiskey on a bad stomach?”
“The whiskey’s for me, mate.”
She was too tired and sick to fight him. She settled back against him, closing her eyes, as she felt him stroke her hair, her back, murmuring incomprehensible things that somehow managed to soothe her. She even let him pour some soup down her throat, a little bit at a time, followed by dry crackers.
“Enough,” she muttered, and he leaned over, placing the food on the table.
“Now you need sleep, love,” he said.
She was past fighting him. He shifted, and she expected him to set her down on the narrow bed. Instead he simply lay down beside her, keeping her firmly in his arms, his hands still stroking her. She knew she should tell him to get the hell away from her, but for some reason she couldn’t loosen the grip she had on his shirt, and she gave in. Some things were just too hard to fight.
She woke once in the middle of the night, certain she was going to lose the small amount of food he’d managed to get in her. But he held her, whispering to her, calming her, and she was able to fall back asleep, safe in his arms. And when she awoke next the sun was shining, her stomach was calm, and he was gone.
Barringer was playing solitaire. With real cards, not on the computer. You couldn’t cheat on a computer, and he intended to win at any cost, even when he played against himself, even when there were no stakes at all but his knowledge that he was in control.
He felt the rumble in his chest pocket and he jumped. It was that cell phone they insisted he carry. He did his best to keep from giving out the number. He didn’t like it, and not even the knowledge that it could keep his operatives tethered to him was enough to make him comfortable with it.
He reached into his chest pocket and pulled it out. Even worse, it wasn’t a phone call but a text message, one he couldn’t read without his glasses. He grumbled beneath his breath, fished out the glasses and read.
It was from his man in Callavera. “Sully dead. Target escaped. Any orders?”
He didn’t know how to delete messages, so he simply put it back in his pocket, resisting the strange impulse to throw the phone. He never cursed, never lost his temper. It was a set-back, he told himself, but nothing was ever out of reach if you were patient enough. Not even Thomas Killian.
He’d need to make sure they’d gotten on the freighter. It was due to land in Spain in six days. Plenty of time to come up with a new plan.
MacGowan was instructing Dylan in some of the finer points of playing poker when Sister Beth emerged from her cabin, pale but stalwart. It looked as if the worst of her seasickness had passed, and she was nibbling on one of the hard biscuits he’d left in her room.
They were sitting on a small section of the deck that the captain had grudgingly cleared for them, and he had his sunglasses on, hiding his gaze from her. She didn’t need to see his eyes. If she did she’d know he was just a hair’s breadth from throwing her down on the deck and shagging the hell out of her, and she was in no shape for even the suggestion of his animal lusts.
Maybe it would have been better if he’d been able to spend a couple of hours with a cheerful professional, but La Luz had put paid to that idea. He’d been planning to go out once he’d gotten the paperwork done . . .
Who the fuck was he trying to fool? Himself? If he’d wanted to get fucked so badly he would have gone straight for that and not bothered with the steak. He may as well admit the truth. He hadn’t wanted just anyone to take care of the raging need that drove him. He’d wanted Beth.
He could have had her. He could have told her the men were watching too closely – he could have brought them into the room. He could have had her any way he could, with or without an audience.
But some stupid-ass strain of decency, that he would have thought was long-banished, had reared its ugly head, just as his cock had, and he couldn’t do it to her.
So instead he’d lost it and come all over her, no doubt completing her disgust of the male sex in general and him in particular. He’d felt her shudder in his arms, and while he would have loved to think it was nascent desire, he was probably wrong.
“You look like you’re feeling more human,” he observed in an even voice. He hadn’t dared stay with her, not after she’d rubbed up against him in her sleep like a hungry kitten looking for its mother.
She ignored him, as he’d expected, but to his surprise she went over to Dylan and put her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.
Dylan turned beet red. “Dude!” he protested.
She released him, giving him the warm, open smile she’d never given MacGowan and probably never would, and he wanted to take the kid and pitch him over the side of the ship. “I’m just glad you’re alive,” she said. She finally looked at MacGowan, her blue eyes revealing nothing. “Is this a private game or can anyone play?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think you’re up to it, Sister Beth? I’m already dealing with one rank amateur and I don’t usually make allowances for beginners.”
“Dude!” Dylan began.
“Shut up.”
“No quarter given?” Beth was unfazed. “Fine with me. You want to waive the reward you’re demanding for getting me out of that hellhole?”
“Hell, no. You may cheat. We’ll play for something a little less crucial to my future comfort. Strip poker?”
“Dude!”
“Not you,” MacGowan reassured Dylan. “Your scrawny ass holds no interest for me.”
“Good thing, since we’re sharing a cabin,” Dylan grumbled.
MacGowan hid his smile. “What do you say, Sister Beth?”
Her gaze was cool and unpromising. “I think I’d rather win something that interested me, and I’ve already seen you naked.”
“You have?” Dylan was clearly horrified.
MacGowan didn’t bother to hide his irritation. Dylan hadn’t needed to hear the down and dirty details of Beth’s rescue. “Don’t worry, kid. She’s still a virgin.”
“I am not!” she snapped, effectively goaded.
“Close enough.” He kicked the extra chair out for her. “Have a seat. When you come up with stakes that interest me I’ll deal you in.”
“Why can’t we bargain with food the way we were doing?” Dylan said. “You just won my dinner.”
“Because I want her to eat. She’s so thin a stiff breeze could blow her away,” he drawled, mentally cursing himself for using the word “stiff” in conjunction with Beth. He was having a hard enough time already.
“You’re assuming you’ll win,” she said in a dulcet tone.
“I cheat.”
“So do I.”
“Dude!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Porsche slid smoothly through the city streets, the headlights bouncing off the wet pavement. Peter loved this car. Genny insisted it was his treat for the long commute every day, but in his heart he knew it was impractical.
He really should give it up. It was too small for his growing family – using car seats in a two-door was better suited to the Cirque de Soleil – and Mahmoud had been eyeing it hungrily. Since Peter had no intention of letting a seventeen-year-old boy out with such a powerful piece of machinery, and because he didn’t trust Mahmoud not to give in to temptation and simply help himself, he was better off without the damned car, even if it made commuting into London less tedious. Maybe something nice and stodgy like a Vauxhall would put Mahmoud off. After all, he had a reputation to uphold with his mates.
He was heading toward the M3 when his mobile rang, and he punched the button on the steering wheel, and Genny’s sweetly American voice came over the speaker. “Are you still at the office?”
&n
bsp; “Just left, Miss Spenser,” he said in a sinuous voice he kept just for her.
She laughed, the sound rich and warm. “Don’t mess with me, you wretch. I’m bogged down with infants. Mahmoud just called. He was in town with some of his mates and needs a ride home. Can you pick him up?”
“Of course. Where is he?”
“I told him to go to the office.”
Peter made an unhappy noise. The security at the office was particularly lethal, something Mahmoud, with the blithe disregard of all teenagers, chose to ignore, having outwitted it on only his third try. He ignored all of Peter’s threats, warnings, and bribes, and he had complete faith that when he returned to the office Mahmoud would be sitting behind his desk, hacking into some of the world’s most secret files. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Please don’t, darling. My children need their father and I don’t fancy visiting you in prison. Speaking of which, have you heard anything more from MacGowan? Is he still planning to gut you?”
Again, he could thank Mahmoud for spilling the beans about that particular threat. “Nothing yet. I had another message from Isobel. She says she’s had word that he’s crossing the Atlantic on a freighter, so I imagine he’ll show up sooner or later.”
“And Isobel? Is she staying on Mars or wherever she and Killian have hidden themselves?”
He pulled into the underground parking garage. “No reason not to.”
“If you promise not to kill Mahmoud I’ll put the babies down early and have my wicked way with you.”
“Promises, promises,” he said lightly. “You want me to pick up anything for tea?”
“Not a thing. See you in an hour?”
“Depending on traffic.”
The building that housed the new Committee offices was small, sleek and modern. They owned the top two floors, and the first two were leased by a cover organization. It was after six, and everyone had left, though he’d noticed the light in his office as he’d driven in. Bugger Mahmoud, he thought grumpily, riding up in the elevator.