He licked her, right where a vein was pumping, strong and fast. Her heart was beating fast, too. He could feel it under the lightweight, frothy material of her dress. Fear? Desire?
He shifted his hand until it covered her breast, letting the heavy, warm weight of his hand shape it. He could feel a hard little nipple. She was aroused, too. No doubt about it. Her nipple was stiff and hard. Every time his cock pulsed, her hips surged up slightly against his. She might not even be aware of it, but he was. Christ, was he. He could feel every movement of her body.
He kissed her neck, and she sighed. This was the welcome he wanted, the one he’d been waiting for. He trailed his lips up her neck, over her jawline, and finally settled on her mouth.
She opened immediately for him, mouth soft and warm, tongue rubbing against his in welcome. It was the most electrifying kiss he’d ever had. He slanted his mouth for a better fit, tongue deep in her mouth, moving, tasting her.
All he could do was kiss her but it was better than fucking anyone else. Kissing was great. Why had he ignored kissing all those years? It wasn’t always high on the agenda in bed. A kiss was for the beginning, to establish that sex was going to take place. He rarely kissed while fucking and women rarely asked for it.
Yet it was so delicious. Every nerve ending he had that wasn’t in his cock was in his mouth. He could feel everything about her, about her response, with his lips and tongue. They fit perfectly. When he slanted his lips, she eagerly met his until it felt as if he were sinking into her mouth. It was as intimate as sex, and as his tongue moved with hers, feeling the warm welcome, his cock became even harder, dying to be in her.
His tongue rubbed against hers and her hips rose up and rubbed against him. Jesus, he was hard as a rock.
Kowalski briefly broke the kiss. He needed to breathe and he needed to check the situation before his mind turned to mush. He shifted his head and tried to focus to something that wasn’t Allegra’s perfect skin and the taste of her. And froze.
Shit! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!!
While he’d been busy with Allegra’s mouth, the situation had changed drastically. For the worse.
Claire Parks had appeared against the opposite wall, the one Midnight was sitting against. Her bright red dress was like a flag to anyone who cared to see. She was sitting with her back against the wall, just like Midnight, and you had to watch carefully to see that she was sliding closer and closer to him.
Luckily, the bad guys were intent on smashing and looting, stuffing the jewels in canvas gym bags. The fucker with the muzzle to Suzanne’s head kept shifting his attention from her to his comrades. He wasn’t looking toward the back wall, toward where Claire Parks had suddenly appeared. Greed had blinded them all.
He’d seen this before, particularly in Africa. The hint of conflict diamonds could turn battle-hardened, mission-focused warriors into mindless animals. You never, ever took your attention away from the mission. Greed, lust, vengeance—they were all emotions you gave in to after the mission was over.
These assholes were already blinded by the fog of greed. They were seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in their hands and didn’t—couldn’t—see Claire inching closer to Midnight.
Kowalski was used to thinking three moves ahead and he could see it all in his mind, as if he were reading a novel, skipping ahead to what would happen next.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Claire was edging closer to John. Kowalski had to admit she was doing a good job. If you didn’t know she hadn’t been there before, you couldn’t have realized she was moving. But she was. Claire stopped about a foot from Midnight and Kowalski could see her arm moving.
She was sliding something over to him.
Bud was alive. If he weren’t, Claire wouldn’t be here. And if Bud was alive, he was coming through. Kowalski had only met Bud a few times but he knew that about him. Bud and now Midnight were going to face the jewel thieves on their own. Kowalski didn’t know what Claire was sliding over to John, whether it was a gun she’d somehow found or a knife, but there was no doubt John would instantly grab the distraction Bud was going to create to waste the guy holding a gun to Suzanne’s head.
Leaving himself wide open.
“Douglas?” Allegra was clutching his arms. She’d picked up on his tension. He looked down briefly at her. She was pale, like a stricken unicorn, beautiful mouth wet from his, tight with tension. Her eyes were trying to follow him, failing, and he realized with a lurch how horrible it must be to be blind.
“Shh,” he whispered, and bent to kiss her briefly. A touch of lips and then away because the temptation to linger, to stay at her mouth, was almost overwhelming.
“What’s happening?” Allegra touched his cheek with her hand. “What’s going on?”
She needed to know. Kowalski bent to her ear, keeping his eyes on what was happening in the room. There was tension in Midnight’s shoulders. It was coming down soon.
“I think John and Bud are going to make a move,” he said in a low voice. “I have to help them.”
“No, God—are you crazy? What’s the matter with you? Don’t go out there! Those men have guns and you don’t!” She gasped and tightened her grip. “Stay here,” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.
Stay here. Nothing he’d like better.
“I can’t, honey.” There was real regret in his voice, as he gently peeled her hands away from his satin jacket lapels. “I can’t let them do it alone.”
“But you called the police! I heard the man’s voice, he said he was coming soon.” Her whisper was fierce as she clutched at his biceps.
Kowalski nearly sighed. “Yeah, but John doesn’t know that. I have to go. I can’t let him and Bud face these guys alone.” He studied Allegra’s lovely face, committing it to memory. He wanted that image in his head if he died.
Professional warriors have no illusions about battle. No matter how smart you are, how hard you’ve trained, shit happens. And more often than not, it happens when you least want it. He’d seen guys get wasted two days before retirement, the day their first son was born, a week before their wedding.
Kowalski had been prepared to die, if necessary, each time he went into battle. All warriors were, otherwise they couldn’t do what they did.
Murphy’s Law was the one certainty in battle. The fact that now he had just met the most desirable woman on the face of the planet, and that she seemed to feel the spark too, only made it more probable that he’d be wasted, as if going up unarmed against five AK-47s, maybe more, wasn’t bad enough.
He’d give his right nut to be able to stay right here, on top of Allegra, kissing her, until the good guys arrived and saved the day. But he wasn’t being given that option.
Life is tough. Suck it up. The Warriors’ Creed.
“Listen to me carefully, honey.” She stilled, sightless eyes trying to track him as he moved. He lifted himself up, shrugging off his tuxedo jacket. He placed it over her, opened up lengthwise. It almost completely covered her. “Don’t move until I come for you. If I…don’t come for you, wait right here until the police find you. Don’t move. Larry Morton, the guy I called, knows there’s someone under the stage.” He tucked the edges of the jacket around her. “I’ve put my jacket on you, it’s dark, you should be camouflaged. Remember, no matter what, don’t move until someone comes for you.”
“Don’t go,” she whispered, head turned toward him. A lone tear tracked down the pale skin of her cheek. “Please don’t go.”
Kowalski closed his eyes in pain. Jesus, this was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “I have to, honey,” he whispered back.
Midnight’s shoulders were stiff. Anyone who didn’t know John wouldn’t have noticed anything, but Kowalski knew him like a brother. Whatever it was John was planning to do, he was going to do it now.
Kowalski bent to quickly kiss Allegra, his mouth catching the tear, tucking her arms into the protection of his jacket.
“Come back to me,” she whispered urgently, he
r hands emerging from his jacket to cup his face.
“Yeah, count on it,” he said in a rush, rolling away from her. Midnight was starting to slowly hyperventilate, pulling in oxygen needed for the burst of energy of battle. “You stay put now,” he whispered again over his shoulder.
He rolled to the edge of the dais, starting to hyperventilate himself. The staging of an operation was always the most dangerous period. Once battle was engaged, he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. Here he was flying blind. He couldn’t make a move first and sabotage a surprise attack, nor could he afford to be even a second late in making his move after Midnight and Bud made theirs. It had to be split-second precision timing. He breathed deeply and waited, tense and ready.
“Good luck.” The sound was more a movement of air than a whisper. He nodded. She couldn’t see it, but he didn’t dare risk a sound. The thieves were nearing the end of their looting. They were pulling it off. They’d killed the security guards and neutralized the men in the great hall—or so they thought. The average age of most of the men in the hall must be about sixty—old, rich geezers, nearly every one. No threat.
The looters would have visions of half a billion dollars dancing in their heads. All the women, liquor or cocaine—or whatever would float their boat—they could ever want for the rest of their natural lives were contained in four canvas gym bags at their feet. They were already high on the idea.
Even the guy holding the women hostage had let his guard down, forgetting a prime rule of battle. It isn’t over until it’s over. You can be killed by the last bullet just as easily as by the first.
Kowalski would have to use this guy’s weapon, because sure as anything, he would be the one John wasted first. Kowalski memorized the positions of the other jewel thieves. He ran through possible scenarios in his head, figuring out how to get to the weapon after the fucker holding the women hostage was dead. If John had a knife, he’d go for the throat and the guy would probably drop backwards to the ground. Kowalski hoped. His one chance was to grab the guy’s weapon fast. If he had to kick a dead body onto its back to get to the weapon, he’d waste precious seconds.
Here it comes!
The big double doors at the back of the room burst open and Bud came through. Midnight surged up, sending blurs of steel flashing across the room. The man holding a gun to Suzanne’s head was bowled over backwards, feet flying up in the air as he frantically clutched the knife piercing his neck.
Kowalski ran crouching, rolled to reduce his target profile, and came up cradling the guy’s AK-47, firing in short controlled bursts, blessing the hundreds of thousands of rounds he’d shot in combat training. No tame, target-practice shooting for SEALs. No careful sighting through the front sight, standing still, two-handedly. No, they trained for the real thing—running, rolling while shooting at a moving, hard-to-identify target, eight hours a day, several months a year.
He caught one thief in the head before the man even had time to lift his weapon, and another one—a clean double tap to the head—as he was dropping into a crouch. Both of them crumpled to the ground, lying there in the unmistakable stillness of death.
John had nailed two with knives before bolting to Suzanne. Bud caught a thief in the arm and the head, swayed, and dropped to the ground himself. With a cry, Claire rushed to him. Bud’s shirtfront was bright red—he was wounded, and badly, judging from the blood. Midnight was holding Suzanne in a tight grip, head buried in her hair.
Shit! There were still the perimeter guards! Bud was out of commission and Midnight was out of his mind with fear for Suzanne.
Kowalski turned and lifted his weapon at the sound of the side doors bursting open with breaching explosives. His finger eased on the trigger when he recognized Larry Morton’s tall wiry frame beneath the body armor.
Ten SWAT team members poured into the room, moving fast, moving precisely. They were well-trained. Within five seconds the team member had every inch of the room covered, in overlapping sectors of coverage. They kept their weapons up and trained, though it was clear the danger was over.
Kowalski walked over to Larry, letting the muzzle of the AK-47 point toward the ground. “What the fuck took you guys so long? We had to do it all ourselves.”
“That right? I thought I told you to wait.” Larry’s words were directed at him, though his eyes, dark and sharp, were quartering the room. But there was no danger here. The only people standing with weapons were his team and Kowalski himself. The bad guys were all dead. At least those in the room.
“What about the perimeter guys?” Kowalski asked.
Larry shrugged. “Taken care of.”
Kowalski nodded with his head to the back of the room. “Lieutenant Morrison is going to need medical care.”
Larry’s sharp sniper’s eyes widened. “Bud? He’s here?”
“Yeah, he took care of one of the guys, but he’s wounded. He must have already been shot because none of the bad guys got off a round in here.”
“Okay.” Larry turned away and spoke in a quiet, urgent tone into his headset mike. He nodded grimly to Kowalski. “All right. Medics are right outside. They should be here any—ah.”
A team of medics burst into the room. Larry directed two of them over to where Bud was lying on the ground, unconscious, watched over by Claire. The other medics were fanning out, touching the necks of each bad guy, then moving on. One checked the tuxedoed guest who’d been blown away. He shook his head and stood up. Two women had fainted and they were being revived by the medics.
Midnight walked up to Kowalski and Larry, his arm tightly around Suzanne’s shoulders. She was shaking, which Kowalski expected, since she’d nearly had her head shot off. But Midnight was shaking too, which blew Kowalski’s mind. He’d never seen John Huntington show any emotion after battle at all. And here he was, pale and shaking.
He addressed Larry directly. “I’m going home,” Midnight announced. “I know you guys have to debrief me, and two of those,” he turned to look at the thieves lying still and dead on the marble floor with eyes that were cold and flat, “are mine. Knife through the throat. You’ll find my prints on the blades. I’ll come downtown tomorrow if you need me, but right now I’m taking my wife home.”
Larry nodded. “Okay. It all looks pretty straight to me. We’ll want a statement but it can wait. The CSI guys will be here in a minute. We’ll be busy for a while mopping up and identifying the dead guys. We’ll be in contact with you.” He looked over. “You too, Kowalski. Expect a call soon.”
The medics had loaded Bud onto a stretcher and were carrying him out of the Foundation. Claire was by Bud’s side, keeping a hand on the stretcher as she walked. Someone—probably one of the guests—had lent her a jacket and she held it tightly around herself. Larry went to check on Bud.
John’s jaws bunched. He tightened his arm around Suzanne’s shoulders. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
Suzanne had been crying, her makeup was smudged, there was a long rip in the skirt of her gown, yet she still looked beautiful. She murmured assent, then stopped and looked up. “John, what happened to Allegra? We can’t leave without her. She came with us. How can she get home—”
“She’s safe,” Kowalski said. “I rolled her under the stage.” He gave Midnight a hard look. “I’ll take care of her. I’ll make sure she gets home safely.”
Midnight looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go, love.”
“No. No way. Allegra is our responsibility. She came with us and we have to take her home.” Suzanne stood her ground. “I’m not leaving without her.”
Kowalski was exasperated, but at the same time he had to admire Suzanne. She was white and shaking, she’d come this close to having her brains blown out of her head, she was probably longing for the safety and quiet of home, and her husband’s arms, but she wasn’t budging without her friend. “I said I’ll take care of it, Suzanne,” he said gently.
“Um…I don’t know.” She looked at her husband
and then back to Kowalski. “I need to know that you’ll see her to her door, Douglas. She’s blind and she’ll be scared. To tell you the truth, I’d feel better if we took her home.”
Kowalski nodded once. “I understand completely, Suzanne. But you don’t need to worry about Allegra. I’ll take care of her.”
“Poor Allegra…” she whispered. She watched Kowalski’s eyes, looking for something, her chin wobbling. Her eyes grew wet. When a tear dropped over, Midnight reached to wipe it away. Stress was starting to break her defenses.
“You can trust Kowalski, sweetheart. He won’t let anything happen to her,” Midnight murmured in her ear. He gave Kowalski a sharp glance that clearly said, If anything happens to my wife’s friend, I’ll have your hide.
They’d spent a lot of time together under dangerous conditions and had perfected unspoken communication. Kowalski met his eyes—Allegra’s with me now and nothing bad will happen to her. Midnight nodded and turned to his wife.
“Come on, sweetheart, it’s okay, I promise. Allegra’ll be fine. Kowalski knows what to do. Let’s go, now.” He turned Suzanne toward the door and she went without protest.
Kowalski thumbed the safety on the weapon, handed it to a SWAT team member and sprinted to the stage. He crouched to look underneath and saw her.
The actual takedown had been, as always, in the freaky slo-mo time soldiers knew as combat time. He and his men were so well-trained that what looked like a frightening blur of chaotic action to civilians was actually a series of moves practiced so often in training they could do them in their sleep. Though it felt as if hours had passed, he knew that not more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since he’d left Allegra.
Still, a quarter of an hour alone and blind in the middle of violent action must have been terrifying.
She was lying on her back just as he’d left her, red hair shockingly bright against the white marble floor. One long-fingered hand was holding on to his jacket. Her face was turned toward the room, deathly pale and pinched. She looked so lost and so vulnerable, an angel fallen to earth, touched by tragedy. Kowalski’s heart simply turned over in his chest.