Rafferty said something violent.
Sarah looked at him with sympathy. “From all I’ve heard, Hagen’s got the gall to ask that. Question is, would Josh go along with it?”
Rafferty looked a bit calmer, but none too happy. “Yes. For the possibility of stopping a terrorist organization. And to save my hide and yours.”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“You’re one of Hagen’s beautiful but misguided victims. He has a soft spot for those. And Zach and Lucas have probably told him by now that I’m in love with you. That’d be enough for Josh. But, dammit, it puts him in a hell of a position. From men like Sereno, favors don’t come cheap.”
Sarah waited silently. That unexpected strength was evident in Rafferty’s handsome face, and she knew that he had to come to terms with this himself. Because he knew Josh. Because he knew what this would cost Josh. She didn’t remind him that they could still pull out. They both knew that option was open at least until tomorrow.
After a moment, he said quietly, “I could rationalize. Josh is a hardheaded businessman with nearly twenty years of experience in handling people who want something from him. He hates terrorists with a vengeance. And only once have I seen him wade into a situation where he wasn’t in control.” Golden eyes focused on her, and Rafferty reached out to cup her cheek warmly. “When he fell in love.”
She waited.
“If you’re right about this—and I think you are—then I have to believe Josh knows what he’s doing. But I’ll owe him.”
“We’ll owe him.”
He pulled her down beside him on the lounge, closing his arms around her tightly.
They went below deck for dinner that evening, but returned to their lounge on the deck afterwards. The boat was making little headway, since they were already close to Kadeira and were more or less circling the island leisurely. It was cool on deck, and quiet, except for the low hum of the engine and the rhythmic splashing of water against the hull. Tom, Dick, and Harry were playing cards in their quarters, and Siran, as always, was on the bridge, alone and watchful.
Rafferty could hardly help but think of Siran’s soundless feet, especially when Sarah responded to his kisses with whispered endearments and that surprising fire of hers. Biting back a groan, he muttered, “I’d like to hang a bell round Siran’s neck.”
Sarah had no difficulty in following the statement back to its source. Feathering her lips along his jaw, she said, “He does tend to interrupt, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, damn him.”
“Umm.” She moved suddenly and slid off the lounge. “Wait here, all right?”
“What’re you—” But she was gone, vanishing into the darkness. Rafferty lay on his back and stared up at the stars, wondering what she was up to. He didn’t have to wait long to find out; she was back in moments. Her slight weight settled on the edge of the lounge, and fingers that had rapidly become expert at the task coped with the buttons of his shirt.
Rafferty could almost hear his heart go into double-time. “Sarah?”
In the soft, honeyed voice that was itself a caress, she murmured, “They were all very polite and agreeable. Nobody’s coming up on deck, and Captain Siran plans to remain on the bridge indefinitely—where he can’t see us.”
“You asked them—?” Rafferty thought of the Sarah he’d first met, cautious, unawakened, and shy, and a heady delight raced through him at this evidence of abandon.
“Why shouldn’t I ask them?” She allowed him to sit up just long enough to shrug off his shirt, then pressed him back down onto the lounge. Her hands moved over his chest, and she bent to press her lips warmly in the dark gold mat of hair. “I wanted to make love to you.”
He caught his breath as small fires blazed to life beneath her touch, spreading and meeting one another until he was burning all over, burning and throbbing. “I’d—be crazy to say no,” he managed hoarsely.
She was little more than a shadow in darkness, curiously insubstantial with her black caftan blending into the night, and her hair a dark glow as she bent over him. But she was real, real and loving, and her loving desire more than made up for a lack of experience. With aching tenderness, she caressed his flesh, tracing shoulders and chest and ribs. Her soft lips found his flat nipples and teased them hard, then followed the arrow-shaped trail of hair to his belt buckle.
Her delicate hands unfastened his belt and pants, and Rafferty never knew if he helped her to discard the clothing or if she managed the feat alone. He had known from the first that her touch brought a sweet madness, and the test of his willpower on that first night was nothing compared to the effort it took now for him to remain still beneath her hands. But he fought the primitive urges to assume control, knowing they would both find a special pleasure in this.
And it was in awed delight that Sarah felt his building response, felt him quiver beneath her touch. What had begun in a spurt of reckless desire had become something wondrous and almost painfully exquisite. The faintly salty taste of his skin, the rough brush of hair, the sleekness of hard muscles, all made her dizzy and hungry. She could feel the soft breeze and hear the rushing and splashing of the ocean, but nothing was real to her except him. Nothing existed but them.
She trailed her soft hands slowly down his sides, shaping strong hips and thighs, teasing him partly by instinct and partly with a newfound knowledge. Her lips were warm, exploring his body as he had explored hers. There was no shyness now, no reluctance or hesitation, and his taut readiness fueled her hunger with every passing second.
His fingers curled into the cushions beneath him and Rafferty groaned aloud, his muscles rigid with the effort of enduring her shattering caresses. Every rasping breath burned his chest achingly, and his heart was choking him with its pounding. The pleasure was so intense it was as if she had scalded away his flesh and now tormented raw nerves.
His control splintered with a suddenness that was almost audible, and she was moving even as he did, both reaching for the snaps that fastened her caftan. The material flew out to either side of her, hanging from her shoulders and leaving her bare body glowing against a backdrop of sheer black, and she hardly needed his guiding hands on her hips as he pulled her over him. And the sound he made when he thrust into the welcoming heat of her was a primitive growl of satisfaction.
They were both still for a heartbeat, fused, one, breath suspended and bodies quivering on the edge of a tormenting precipice. In that eternal moment, Rafferty thought that he had never seen so clearly, so starkly. She was a pure white flame in the darkness, slender, steely, burning, delicate, incredibly feminine, impossibly strong. And he belonged to her heart and soul.
Then the stillness splintered, and they were moving, driven by identical needs, rushing into a bottomless chasm and to a willing death. Locked together.
Her slight weight was a caress, and Rafferty held her with his remaining strength, vaguely aware that her caftan had floated about them both in a silky covering. He could feel the breeze cooling heated flesh, feel her lips moving against his throat, and there were no words for what his heart felt. Except the most simple ones.
“I love you.”
She raised herself just a bit. “I love you too,” she said solemnly, still just a little breathless. “And how on earth did we wind up making love on the deck of a yacht?”
“I was attacked and undressed by a shameless wanton,” he explained. “I don’t know about you.”
“I don’t know about me, either. I just seemed to go crazy all of a sudden.” She buried her face against his throat again, and he felt as well as heard a giggle escape. “I can’t believe I really looked those men in the eye and told them not to disturb us.”
“I wish I’d been a fly on the wall,” he said wistfully.
“Ummm.” She lifted her head again and kissed him. In a tone of pleased discovery, she added, “And I didn’t even have to call you darling.”
He cleared his throat. “Sarah?”
She could feel the stir
ring of his body, a renewal of desire. “This is incredible,” she said, bemused. “What if I say it in public?”
“We’ll find a closet,” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair and feeling more than a little bemused himself.
“There must be magic in the word,” she decided. But she rapidly lost interest in the analytical aspect of the matter.
It wasn’t important.
It was late when they managed to find the strength to make their way down to the cabin. They showered together, luxuriating in the privacy and intimacy, then lay together, pleasantly exhausted, in bed. But both were conscious that tomorrow was really the beginning of their dangerous assignment, and neither could sleep.
“If something happens—” she began.
Rafferty pulled her even closer, one hand stroking her silky hair. “Nothing will happen.”
Softly, she said, “We can’t ignore reality.”
“No,” he agreed, but his tone was fierce. “We can’t. But we have an appointment at the altar when this is finished, and nothing is going to prevent that.”
Sarah rubbed her cheek against his chest, smiling, feeling a sense of certainty about the future for the first time. “Determined,” she said lazily. He was determined, and who could stand in his way?
SEVEN
PRESIDENT SERENO COMMANDED an impressive fleet. As the Thespian crossed the three-mile limit late the following morning, those aboard the yacht waited in varying states of unease to be noticed. Within ten minutes two fast boats resembling coast guard cutters swept around them and then came alongside. Both vessels were openly armed and the uniformed men aboard them carried automatic weapons.
The crew of the Thespian was directed in crisp English via a loudspeaker to maintain their heading and speed and, needless to say, they obeyed the order.
As the island of Kadeira became more visible on the horizon, it was Rafferty who noticed several of their escorts staring at Sarah in surprise. It was likely that her bright hair and the slender figure she presented dressed in white slacks and a green blouse had first drawn their eyes, but even with the distance between the boats it was clear they thought they recognized her.
“I guess Sereno didn’t keep his feelings to himself, even around his men,” Rafferty observed to Sarah as they stood on deck together. “The men look like they’ve seen a ghost.”
Sarah barely noticed. She was scanning the horizon off to starboard where a large group of vessels maneuvered in some mysterious pattern in the distance, reminding herself silently that she had known they were sailing into an armed fortress. Still, the size of those distant ships was unsettling. She looked up at Rafferty, and his faint smile soothed her nerves while his steady golden gaze gave her courage.
She leaned against his side, then felt a new uneasiness raise its head: Rafferty’s gun was packed in his suitcase, ready to be carried onto the island. “If someone searches our bags and finds the gun …” she murmured.
He shook his head a little. “I doubt it would raise suspicions. We’re supposed to be wealthy, remember? I wouldn’t be the first rich man to carry a gun.”
They turned their attention forward, watching as the boats entered the harbor of the crescent-shaped island. It was a good harbor with plenty of room for the score of vessels riding at anchor and tied up at the dock. Except for a few fishing boats, all belonged to the military.
A cluster of buildings, mostly the warehouses common in such areas, stood near the dock. To the left was the striking vista of towering mountains and rolling hills that helped to make the island so beautiful, and to the right, whitewashed and shining in the bright sunlight, was the island’s only real city and the home of most of its people.
No building reached more than five stories, and all the whitewash couldn’t hide the scarring evidence of a country in turmoil. There was some construction going on, but not much, and shored-up buildings showed like broken teeth in the skyline. Colorful flowers struggled gallantly in the rubble of the bombed remains of cars, trucks, and buildings.
As they slowed and prepared to dock, they could see armed men in uniform all around, guarding the buildings and walking the streets in pairs. None of them even reacted to the distant stutter of weapons off in the hills, nor was there a reaction from the colorfully dressed people who went expressionlessly about the business of living.
Sarah felt a lump in her throat, and was hardly conscious of engines dying and the thumps of the yacht settling against the dock. Kadeira could have been a beautiful island, she thought: it was a beautiful island—being choked to death.
Tourism and foreign investment might save it even at this late date, but few visitors or investors would have been willing to put their lives or their money at stake in a country where battles took place daily and “rebels” from the hills periodically attacked the city.
The government that Sereno had overthrown years before had been a brutal one, a leech sucking the life out of the island’s people. A young and handsome general then in the revolutionary army, Sereno had practically been carried into power on the shoulders of his men after having become a legend of the uprising.
For a time, there had been peace. Sereno had set about the inevitably slow and understandably complicated task of patching and rebuilding a country in tatters, a country of aching poverty, a shattered economy, and a populace weary of both. He had promised a better life, and had, by all accounts, tried his best to deliver on that promise.
It wasn’t entirely clear to anyone what had happened then. Perhaps it had been impatience on the part of some at the slowness of change, or a power struggle within his government. Whatever the reason, revolution had broken out again. A general who had been Sereno’s comrade in the early days became a bitter enemy, taking to the hills from which he periodically stormed the city, and Kadeira was once again plunged into civil war.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Rafferty asked quietly, and Sarah forced herself to put speculation out of her mind.
“Yes. A shame.”
Their attention was attracted by bustle on the dock then, and they watched as a gleaming black limousine flying the flags of state drew to a stop. There were jeeps in front of and behind the limo, and when the vehicles halted, soldiers got out and stood with guns at the ready. The limo’s passenger didn’t wait for the door to be opened for him, but thrust it wide and got out.
“That isn’t Sereno,” Sarah observed as Rafferty helped her onto the dock.
“I’m not surprised,” Rafferty responded quietly, as they stood together and watched the approach of a slender man of medium height. He possessed a military carriage, despite the absence of a uniform. “Sereno’s a target no guards could protect effectively out in the open like this.”
Sarah could feel no tension in Rafferty, and she was amazed even though she knew he wasn’t a man to get nervous—until she realized that she herself was relaxed and curiously detached. The wondering was over, and the time for doubts past. They were in this now, and the only way out was to finish what they’d been sent here to do. The realization was comforting.
The man reached them, his last steps faltering when his cool gaze fell on Sarah. His surprise was obvious, as was his dismay, but both emotions were quickly hidden. His voice was clipped when he spoke, his English perfect. “I am Colonel Durant, aide to President Sereno.”
“Rafferty Lewis. My wife, Sarah.”
How easily he says that! she thought, feeling happy as she inclined her head politely in response to Durant’s brief bow.
Abruptly, the colonel asked, “Have we met, Mrs. Lewis?”
“No, Colonel, we haven’t,” she responded calmly. She met his hard stare, and knew the exact moment when Durant realized she merely resembled, but was not, the Sara he had known.
“Welcome to Kadeira,” Durant told them. “President Sereno extends his compliments and invites you to stay at his home while you are here. He asked me to assure you that your yacht will be protected, and the comfort of your crew s
een to.”
Rafferty glanced over his shoulder and saw Siran’s dark face remain expressionless at the assurance. He looked back at Durant. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“My men will see to your luggage.” He made a slight gesture and two men detached themselves from the rest and headed for the Thespian. Then Durant gestured toward his car, leading the way.
As the limousine wound through the city streets, the scars of Kadeira were even more visible. There were bombed buildings and shops with shuttered windows. Rotting vegetables were thrown at the gleaming car from the obscurity of alleyways. But there were a few construction crews at work, their efforts guarded by soldiers and jeeps with machine guns mounted in them, and a handful of shops were open for business.
They passed a radio station, its windows and doors boarded up and the tower behind it a shorn-off mass of twisted metal. And they passed the prison.
Though he had commented on nothing else, Durant did direct their attention to the low, square building with barred windows and an impressive number of guards patrolling it. Martial law was, of course, in effect, he explained, but the streets were safe; the rebels had been driven into the hills after their last foray into town some days before.
He made no comment on the vegetables thrown, though it was clear evidence of the disillusionment felt by the city’s people for their government.
Less than half a mile from the prison was the presidential home and if Rafferty and Sarah had expected a palatial estate, they were disappointed. Both saw a huge and imposing building looming on their left, but instead of stopping there the car turned in the opposite direction. Either seeing or sensing their surprise, Durant explained that the building they had just passed was the old presidential palace, turned into a hospital when Sereno came to power.