Blue Knight (20 page)

He realized that he was standing stock still, his shirt still in a hard corkscrewed bunch in his hand. A sloth showed more animation than him right now.

He shook out the shirt and tossed it in the hand basin and quickly dealt with his trousers the same way. By the time he was done, Olivia had finished rinsing her hair and had slicked it back. Her eyes were open. There was a hard light in them. A warning he understood clearly and instantly. Whatever had happened to her tonight, it had included sexual elements. Hardly a surprise—most hardcore interrogation techniques for civilian targets did, regardless of the gender.

If Daniel tried to push her in any way at all tonight, the damage he’d feared had happened a moment ago would become very real.

So.

Daniel deliberately leaned back against the warm, wet tiles of the shower wall, despite his aching cock and thundering heart. It placed him even farther away from her and made him less of a threat. Right now, she needed the least threatening space possible. “You were going to explain sacrifice for the sake of others to me,” he said softly.

It was a deliberate change of subject. They had not spoken about her interrogation aloud but it was almost a physical presence between them, pulsing with black toxic gizzards and deadly fumes. There would be time later to speak of it. When Olivia was ready, she would tell him.

Olivia reached for the conditioner and poured some into her hand. She took her time with it and Daniel knew she was marshaling her thoughts. The diplomat was looking for gentle words. It irritated him and he wasn’t sure why, but before he examined the irritation or the wisdom of reacting to it, he spoke. “Just talk, Olivia. I don’t want politically correct niceties from you.”

She glanced up at him from under a damp lock of dark blonde hair, startled. “Since when did masks start bothering you?”

She had nailed it exactly.

Daniel took a deep breath, striving for calm and falling short by a fraction of an inch because Olivia was so right it scared him. Outside of his job, when had he started caring about the truth beneath the superficial bullshit?

She was already busy applying the conditioner. He had a reprieve, a moment to gather himself. He took it, pulling himself together.

What the hell was going on with him?

It didn’t matter that Blanco was dead and he had no direct communications with his chain of command at the moment. He was still technically on duty and with a mission to complete. Yes, it was true, no one could ever have expected the assignment to take this turn, or to last this long, but that was part of the job. His training included dealing with the unexpected and bringing missions that go sour and off the rails back on track again. He was expected to cope with snags.

In a situation like this, general orders were to stay on mission until he could reconnect with someone in his department and get fresh orders but his experience and seniority also gave him the insight to know that if he continued on with his mission orders after all this time, there was a possibility he might screw up the delicate political situation for the leaders in the big house in Acapulco.

More and more, he needed to plug back into the chain of command and reassess the loyalist position and needs before taking any further action but that just wasn’t going to happen with the situation here at the White Sands.

It was a crappy scenario, but despite that, over the last few days he seemed to have lost sight of the fact that he was a loyalist army officer first and foremost and that everything else came second.

At least, that was the way it had been for the last fifteen or so years.

Her hand touched his chest, the fingers spreading. Daniel opened his eyes. Olivia was looking up at him, concern rich in her face. Her hair was slicked back again, the conditioner rinsed out. “Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” His voice was hoarse and that shocked him, too.

“You’re beating up on yourself because you think you’ve been neglecting your duties as an officer and a gentleman,” she said softly. “You’re not being fair on yourself.”

His breath pushed out in a rush. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Your lips were moving. Spanish. You switch to Spanish when you’re thinking in officer mode or when—” She shrugged. “Well, when you’re in your Vistarian mindset.”

Stunned, he could find no words to respond. He just stared at her.

Olivia stepped back under the water. She picked up the soap and began to lather it.

“Or when what?” he prompted, realizing she had been about to say something else. He felt a prick of guilt for pursuing the opening she had clearly tried to close. But he didn’t want to find out for sure if it was just Olivia who could read him so damn easily.

Either she knew him so well he was a sheet of newsprint to her, or he had become lax and undisciplined. Was it just her, or had the entire hotel figured out he was more than a British businessman? Ernesto had been suspicious enough to tag him for Serrano. Who else suspected?

That was the problem with being in one place for too damn long. People got to know you. They got under your skin.

Daniel stretched his shoulders as an uncomfortable ripple ran down his spine. “I speak Spanish when I’m in officer mode and when else, Olivia?”

She was concentrating on washing the rest of her body, a small furrow between her brows, making a real job of it. He could feel her unease almost like heat radiating off her.

He let the silence stretch a bit longer. “Olivia?”

“When you…during sex.”

She had been about to say “make love”, he realized with a start. Then he stood up from the wall with jerk.

He was speaking Spanish when they made love?

“When?” he demanded. He reached for her arm, then remembered and forced himself to drop his hand. “When did I start speaking Spanish?” He could feel the sweat at his brow even though he was already wet and standing in a steamy shower cubicle.
Christ
.

She stood upright, too. Soap lather was washing off her body in waves, just like foam at the seashore. Her eyes were wide. “You didn’t know. You weren’t aware of it.”

He closed his eyes, turning his head away. Sickness was pooling in the bottom of his gut. “No,” he confessed.

“Daniel, look at me.” Her hands were on his face, turning it.

He forced his eyes open.

Olivia gave him a small smile. “You’re safe. You haven’t been whispering Spanish endearments into the ears of every woman you’ve bedded. You’re fine. You only starting doing it with me after you told me who you really were.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.

He couldn’t help it. He had to lean back against the wall again, so great was his relief. He was shaking with it.

Olivia was staring at him. Her expression was odd, her full lips quirked, like she was puzzled. She pushed her wet hair back over her shoulder and it slapped her back. “You really didn’t know, did you? You had no idea at all that you were doing it.”

He tried to explain. “Well, you think in English, don’t you?”

“You’re telling me you think in Spanish, even now?”

“Not when I’m using English all the time, after all these years. But it seems, now, when I’m truly relaxed, I revert back.” He tried to smile and couldn’t quite make it. “I’m not aware of it because I’m at ease in both languages.”

“Don’t you mean that when you truly have your guard down, you switch back?” Her gaze was pinning him against the wall. Not sparing him an inch.

Daniel slowly nodded. “Yes, that’s what I mean,” he agreed. The last of the fear and sickness left him, like the water draining at the bottom of the cubicle. God, she was relentless, but she had a way of placing her finger on the truth that took the sting from it.

Olivia moved through the spray of water and gently, slowly, rested her body up against his, one soft inch at a time. “You have such courage,” she murmured, finally resting her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know if I could do as well, if I were in your position.”

He looked down at her, shocked. He was tempted to laugh but knew she would take his laughter as scorn. She thought he was brave, this woman who had defied Serrano to protect him?

He wanted to wrap his arms around her. His arms and his entire body. But she had to reach for him. She had to call the shots this time, even if it was just for comfort.

She lifted her head to look up at him. Her arm moved lazily up to slide up into his hair. There was a look in her eyes…. His heart accelerated as he realized Olivia wasn’t seeking comfort at all.

She pulled his head down to meet her lips as they turned up toward him. They were the softest, sweetest lips he’d ever tasted. Why did she always taste of peaches? She was still in the shower, had not even stepped out to clean her teeth or apply cosmetics of any sort. This was just her and she was luscious.

Her small tongue thrust into his mouth, demanding. He struggled not to take control of the kiss, to hold her against him or to dominate her in any way, even though his body was as taut as a piano wire with arousal, strumming each time her fingers stroked the back of his neck, or her tongue flickered against his. Her breasts were soft cushions against his chest, with two pin-prick points of fire that scraped and teased.

Her hand curled around his cock, nestled upright between them. The fingers toyed with the soft ridge and he jerked in her hand, making him gasp into her mouth. “Olivia….”

She pulled her lips from his and her hand from his hair. The hand stayed on his cock, playing with it. Her eyes were dark with arousal.

“I want you to fuck me, Daniel. You think you can do that?”

“You know I can.”

She shook her head. “I’m not just talking about sex.” She licked her lips. “They tore my clothes off me in that room. They tore my clothes off and threatened to let the guard have me. Serrano wanted to shove a submachine gun up my cunt and a pistol up my ass. That’s what he told me. At one point he spread my legs and let the guard have a good long look. A preview, he told them.” She let go of him and clutched her arms about her chest and shuddered. Her eyes grew haunted.

Daniel could feel tightness in his chest and a dull, growing, helpless fury. He wanted to kill them all. Tonight.

Why not
? The small voice was cool, dispassionate. Logical. He had the ability. He knew all the sightlines and where the sentries would be. Serrano was in the hotel. This was a priceless opportunity. To get rid of the leader of the
insurrectos
!

But Daniel would never leave the room alive where Serrano’s assassination took place. He would die right along with Serrano.

Besides, those were not his orders and Olivia needed him right now.

Daniel clenched his hands into fists, but stayed silent so she could keep talking. Above all, she had to keep talking.

Abruptly, she refocused on him. “I want you to cancel all that out.”

“By fucking you,” he repeated carefully. He wasn’t sure he understood.

“Not just a simple fucking. I want you to do everything that Serrano threatened. I want it all wiped out in my imagination by you doing it in fact. Your body. Your mastery. Your domination. Everything. I want to be so completely taken by you that nothing else is left. I don’t want to sleep until the major highlight of this day—this very long day—is you and what you do to me.”

His body and soul leapt, liked a coiled dragon roaring to life. He realized that his heart, too, soared. That his heart leapt over the fact that she wanted him to be the highlight of her day he shoved into the inner recesses of his mind to consider later. He knew there were far too many big questions like this he was shoving onto that shelf marked “later” but was not about to pause to consider them right now.

He managed to contain himself to a gentlemanly smile. “I’m no slouch in the bedroom, but there’s a couple of logistic impossibilities in what you’re asking that even I can’t pull off. I don’t have two penises, for a start, and I didn’t come to the White Sands knowing I’d be here for months, so basic seduction items like lubricant are out of the question.”

Olivia stepped back from him, squeezed the excess water out of her hair and pulled the curtain aside enough to step out of the shower. “Don’t drip on your shoes when you get out,” she told him. “Take your time.”

Of course Daniel didn’t take his time getting out of the shower. Olivia knew he wouldn’t. She had provoked and teased him. He would be maybe thirty seconds behind her, so she hurried. She didn’t dry off at all. Instead she threw on the toweling robe and let it do the drying, wrapped a towel around her wet hair and hurried out into the main room. She heard the shower shut off just as she closed the bathroom door behind her.

She pulled the small cosmetics bag out of her suitcase and laid the contents in a row on the bedcover. The sash from her satin robe she piled next to them.

The bathroom door opened.

Olivia stepped back.

Daniel stalked into the room, still nude. No modest covering for him. He was as she had first seen him—gloriously naked and utterly unconcerned about it.

Except when she lifted her eyes from his cock—which wasn’t quite fully erect—to his face, he smiled.

She could feel her cheeks heating. It was quite ridiculous. They’d had sex seven times already but instead of feeling more at ease around him, Olivia seemed to grow more and more jittery and schoolgirlish with each passing hour. Just looking at him made her chest heavy and her clitoris swell and throb.

She licked her lips and cleared her throat. “You’ll find these adequate substitutes, I’m sure.” She waved to the bed.

Daniel glanced at it, then looked again and his eyes widened just a little. He prowled over to the side of the bed. For a minute he just looked at them. Then he picked up the big blue vibrator. It was an inch and a half thick and eight inches long and had ridges and valleys on it that resembled a real penis. “A second cock,” Daniel murmured. He put it down and picked up the smaller vibrator, only an inch thick, six inches long and smooth and domed. The next item was a pink butt plug. He shot a glance at her as he picked it up, but didn’t comment. The last item was a tube of lubricant, next to her coiled robe sash. He picked up the end of the robe sash. “For tying you down?” he guessed.