Broken Honor (31 page)

The hunger in her grew, a craving, a longing even stronger than before. Its call was irresistible.

His lips left hers, and he looked at her, his blue eyes as brilliant as a rare blue diamond and his mouth swollen by its contact with hers. “Amy?”

She swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”

His gaze lingered a moment. Hot. Wanting. But warning. Then his lips twisted into that appealing smile. He took her hand in his and led her to the larger bedroom. Still standing, he unbuttoned her blouse with such erotic grace that she was trembling. Then he unzippered her jeans and inched them down along with her panties.

She had never thought she had a beautiful body. She was too tall. Not thin enough. She'd always thought herself awkward. Yet his hands moved along it as if every curve were a thing of beauty. And she felt beautiful and glowing. And expectant. So expectant.

His hands ran through her hair and tightened around her shoulders. She closed her eyes to the gentle assault on her every sense, every emotion. She felt his arousal, and her own body responded in an explosion of expectation.

“Don't move,” he said. He reached in his pocket and took out a package, putting it on the table next to the bed. Then he slipped off his clothes. She saw the bruises and cuts that were barely scabbing over. “Should.…”

“Of course we should,” he said gruffly. “Or I'll be in a lot more pain.”

She had to smile at that. She was beginning to understand exactly how he felt.

Their bodies met, fitting against each other as if they had been designed for that one reason. Raw, physical hunger seized her. She heard him groan, and she didn't know whether it was from restraint or the physical agony of their bodies stretching and bending toward one another.

He broke away and took out the contents of the package, then came back to her. Moving in concert—wordlessly, because they no longer needed words—they reached the bed. He guided her down and sat next to her, his fingers loving her with his touch. Then he was above her, balanced on his elbows while the lower part of his body teased and tantalized her.

Tantalize. She'd never really understood that word before, either. It wasn't just want or need. It was more … a crazed craving that had to be sated.

His lips returned to hers. Their tongues met, playing a sensuous game that heightened every sense. Even her toes tingled with a wonderful, electric tension. His mouth left hers and moved down to her left breast. He nibbled, then licked, and her body shuddered with reaction. She felt the change in his body, and her own responded. It was as if it was reaching out in some desperate quest. A greedy fire needing fuel.

The throbbing yearning deepened as he prolonged the agony, made her body arch up to meet his. His slow, deliberate entry only intensified the sensations, each movement creating billows of sensation.

He moved in and out slowly, preparing and exciting her until she thought she would go mad with wanting. “Irish,” she whispered as she felt his restraint, his obvious effort to leash himself, to move slowly, ever so slowly.

Too slowly.

A cry of pure agony burst from her. But still he restrained himself, raining kisses on her eyes, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth until the throbbing inside became unbearable. Then the tempo of his movement quickened, and their bodies danced together in a sensuous waltz of two bodies in instinctive harmony.

One last thrust ignited rapturous bursts of pleasure, turning into a fireball of sensations.…

W
ASHINGTON
, D.C.

“You fool!” The speaker could barely contain his anger. “Can't any of you do anything right?”

“I'll find her again,” came the voice.

“You don't have to look. She'll be running straight to Eachan, and he'll protect her. I needed her as leverage, damn it. You're supposed to be so damn good, and you let a stupid bitch outmaneuver you.”

“I almost had her. I don't know what happened.”

“You said you could handle her alone.”

Silence.

“She'll be on the road to Washington. Get to Eachan's before she does. Stop her before she goes inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your employment depends on a successful conclusion of this matter.”

The phone went dead.

twenty-one

M
ARYLAND

It was pouring rain.

Sally could barely see in front of her. She hated the rain. She particularly hated driving in it.

She remembered driving all the way from Arizona to Maryland when her father died. Her mother had a show opening, and refused to go east to the funeral. She didn't want Sally to go, either.
Nothing you can do, honey. You can mourn him here
. But it wasn't the opening of the show, Sally knew that. Her mother hated everything to do with the Eachan family.

Sally had taken the car keys from her mother's purse during the night and started driving. She'd taken money from her mother's purse, too. Not that there was that much.

She'd known she wouldn't be in time for the funeral, but she kept driving. She could barely see the road through tears. It had been the loneliest time of her life.

Sally was pulled over in Louisiana. Her mother had called the cops on her. She'd spent the hours of her father's funeral in a jail cell.

She never forgave her mother. She ran away again and again. She even threatened to sue her mother after she heard of someone underaged doing exactly that. Her mother finally gave up, and Sally went to live with her grandparents, the Eachans. And after the death of their first-born, they had finally welcomed her.

She remembered every moment of that drive. It had been raining. She'd always equated the death with rain. It was the one thing she'd never told Dusty.…

The rain came harder. She reached the interstate, hesitated, then continued, hands clenched around the steering wheel. She drove another twenty miles, saw a rest stop, and turned off. Instead of taking the branch marked for cars, she followed the truck signs. Finding a number of the tractor trailers parked, she drove into a place between two of them. She had great faith in truckers.

She turned off the ignition and sat there. She had left so suddenly, she hadn't really thought much ahead. Now she did. She had three credit cards and a hundred dollars cash. There would be phones inside. She could call Dusty. She had his cell phone number. She could call from the pay phone here.

How did someone find her
?

The only way was through Dusty. He wouldn't let anything slip. She knew that. He was the most cautious man she knew. That meant someone was tracing phone calls.

Would she bring danger to him? And if she called, could someone start tracking her movements? Would someone be waiting for her?

What would have happened if she'd taken that drink?

She shuddered. Why had she gone there?

The rain pounded against her windshield. On the roof of the car. A lonely sound.

Maybe she would rest a few moments. Try to think. She checked her doors. Both were locked. If anyone even tried to approach she would lean on her horn and wake up every trucker in the parking area.

The thought made her feel better. She tried to think of safe things. Dustin. That reminded her of the sketch of him in the apartment. She wished she had it now.

She wished she had
him
now.

N
ORFOLK

The world was a different place in the morning.

Amy knew it when she woke in Irish's arms. It might not last—these hours—but she knew she would never regret last night. She couldn't imagine now going through life without the experience of last night.

She had never known what lovemaking could be like. It certainly had never been like this with Alan. It had been comfortable with him. Not fire and storm.

Did fire and storm last?

She moved, and his hand reached out. “You're not leaving, are you?” Flaherty's voice was low and lazy and sexy.

She looked at the window. Dark outside. She wondered for a fleeting second what time it was, then discovered she didn't care, not when his arms pulled her closer to him. She felt his lips on the back of her neck, and she squirmed with the shudders that started deep inside.

“Shouldn't we …?”

“Most definitely,” he said.

She realized they weren't exactly talking about the same thing, but he was nibbling her ear, and his body was growing hard, and hers was growing taut; they, at least, were in harmony. Such wonderful harmony.

She turned to face him and began nibbling his ear as he had done hers. It tasted a little salty and really wonderful. He groaned, and she cherished the idea that she could make him do that.

He pulled the sheets off and moved against her. His hard, hot arousal made her ravenous.

He paused a moment, took a precaution that she had not considered. Then he was inside her again. She had thought nothing could match the intensity of last night.

She was wrong.

When Amy woke again, light was streaming through the window, and she smelled coffee brewing. She also realized that there was another difference between Flaherty and herself. His body clock and hers were not in sync. She was a bear in the morning, unwilling to roll out of bed. He was Mr. Marvin Sunshine. She really, really hated that.

Yet a small glow of satisfaction shoved away her usual morning moodiness. He was still here. Making coffee and, from the aroma coming from the other end of the trailer, something else. How extraordinarily … domestic.

Don't
. She told herself that for the thousandth time.
Don't even think of anything beyond the next few days
. He had never mentioned words like “love.” Their normal worlds were so far apart that they could never come together. He was a wanderer. She was a homebody. He was a warrior. She was a pacifist.

Does a pacifist ever carry a pistol in her purse?

How far had she traveled from her roots in these past few days?

And could she ever settle down to her usual routine once this was over? Could she ever go to bed again without thinking about the warmth of his arms? Could she ever wander about without looking for people in the shadows? Could she ever crawl back into her world of history and books? Once you felt the rush of adrenaline, could you ever forget it? Or did ordinary life turn gray, colorless?

She would have to ask Flaherty.

She reluctantly climbed out of bed, pulled on her T-shirt, and went into the bathroom. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and looked at herself critically. Something had changed last night. Her eyes seemed brighter, her color more vivid. Her lips were slightly swollen. She felt she had never looked better. In fact, she seemed to glow, even first thing in the morning.

Did men glow, too?

She ran a comb through her hair and went into the small kitchen.

“Good morning,” she said.

“It's an extraordinarily good morning,” he replied with a grin.

“That good?”

“Not for you?” he asked with feigned disappointment. Or
was
it feigned?

“I'm not usually fond of mornings. Particularly since waking up to someone trying to kill me. But today is a decided improvement.”

He put his fingers on her cheek and brushed back a curl from her face in a gesture so intimate and possessive it made her hurt inside. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair.

Instead, she stepped back. “I smell something.”

His hand dropped, and he gave her a wry grin. “I told you I can cook two things. Steak and omelets. This is the omelet again.”

“I'll cook tonight,” she said.

He nodded as he divided the omelet and put her share on a plate.

“Will we be here tonight?”

“I think so. I'll make some calls in Newport News today.”

“What if he's avoiding you?”

“I plan to take care of that little matter,” he replied grimly. “I'll let him know that my next stop is the newspapers.”

“What if he doesn't care?”

“I've learned a great deal about Dustin Eachan. He'll care, all right. He has grander ambitions than being an assistant to a deputy. I would bet my last dollar that he's the one who maneuvered my new posting.”

“Didn't you say someone was injured? Would someone in the State Department … do something like that?” The moment she said the words she knew how naive she must sound, and how could she possibly be naive after everything that had happened? She knew a lot about human nature, but still … what had been happening was so outside her range of experience.

“I don't know,” he said slowly. “I don't know the man. I only know his reputation.”

“What if he doesn't know anything? Or won't tell us anything?”

“Then we try something else,” he said. “Someone thinks you have some information that endangers them. That idea must have come from somewhere.”

She hesitated, then finally gave voice to the thought that had weighed heavily in her mind. “What if Jon found something? And took it?”

His eyes told her that he had already considered that possibility. “You knew him,” he said. “I didn't. Would he have taken some papers and used them in some way?”

“He was my friend,” Amy said. “But everything seemed to start with those papers.”

“I thought it might have started because I made queries,” Flaherty said.

“But they didn't come after you, not until you interfered,” she said slowly.

“I'm not so sure of that. Maybe they just didn't know where I was. I was on leave.”

“They seem to know everything and how to get to anyone,” she observed, taking the last bite of the omelet. “It's just a matter of time.”

“Such little faith,” he said. “But back to your friend. Do you think he was capable of making a few calls of his own without telling you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he capable of blackmail if he found something in those boxes?”