Burn: A Novel (38 page)

Tonight she was the one who said, for the benefit of those listening, “I’m tired. Are you ready to turn in?”

“Sure, any time you are.” Hah! As if he was ever that accommodating! Smiles in place, he took her arm and they walked at a leisurely pace toward the elevators.

They were silent in the elevator, each of them too pissed at the other to engage in their customary verbal joust. They stepped off the elevator, headed toward the suite—and the guard posted next door. The man ignored them, didn’t even glance their way or nod when Cael slipped the key card in the door to unlock it, as any other member of the crew would’ve done.

Cael went to the bedroom, stripping off his jacket as he went, tossing his fedora aside. He didn’t guide Jenner to a chair and handcuff her, didn’t look back to make sure she wasn’t making a run for it. She followed him into the bedroom, kicking off her shoes and removing her own hat, twirling the cloche on one finger as she headed for the bed. Cael was already setting up his laptop to review anything he might’ve missed.

Finally she broke first, mainly because she couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Are you really mad because I didn’t save you from the horrors of the auction block?”

“No,” he said curtly She’d prefer that he make a joke or insult her in that funny way he had, but he was deadly serious. She sat on the side of the bed, as close to him as she could get. After a few seconds he glanced up, frowning, and tensed at what he saw in her face. “Don’t look at me that way.”

“What way is that?” Like she wanted to eat him up, which she did. She was tired of trying to hide the way she felt.

“You know this is a bad idea,” he said, trying to turn his head away and ignore her.

“I know no such thing.”

Sighing, because she obviously wasn’t about to let him work, Cael set aside his equipment and stood to look down at her. Maybe he was trying to intimidate her. “The situation is … difficult.”

She had to snicker. “Couldn’t say
hard
, could you?”

He ground his teeth, which he seemed to be doing a lot lately. “Jenner …”

“I know, I know. You kidnapped me. You’re afraid I’m having some sort of nervous breakdown, or that I might feel obligated to sleep with you so you won’t kill me when this is all over, or—”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he snapped.

“I know that,” she said softly. “But the situation isn’t exactly normal.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I know how to fix that.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? How’s that?”

“Let me go.”

He remained silent, but his eyes narrowed.

She continued, “As long as we’re still cruising around the Hawaiian Islands I can get off the boat, go to a hotel, lay low until the cruise is over. If I give you my word that I won’t betray you, if I swear that you can trust me … you can let me go.”

“So that’s what this is about,” he said curtly, temper flaring in his blue eyes. “You think if you flirt with me, I’ll suddenly lose my common sense.”

She sighed. “No. I’m thinking if you let me go and I stay of my own free will, everything changes.”

She stood, because being seated made her feel as if she were in a subservient position. Cael was still taller than her, bigger than her, stronger than her, but in every way except physically she was his equal, and it was time he acknowledged that.

He stared down at her, evaluating, calculating, and she couldn’t help but think about Linda Vale and her Wayne, the only man in her life, the only man she’d ever wanted. Jenner wanted to know what it was like to love that deeply. Cael got to her. He made her angry, he made her laugh, and when he kissed her—
yowza! He
got to her in ways no other man ever had. Was that love, or just the heightened emotions of the moment? Only one way to find out.

“Fine,” he said. “You’re free to go.”

Jenner threw her hands up. “Was that so hard?” Then she went up on her toes and kissed him, quickly and softly, as she had earlier, when they’d been on deck.

She stepped around him, collected her pajamas, and headed for the bathroom.

“I thought you were leaving,” he said, sounding almost disappointed.

“Nope. This is my stateroom, after all,” she said. “They’d probably kick you out of this room if I left the cruise, and wouldn’t that be a pain in the ass. The difference now is, I’m not a prisoner, I’m a partner.”

“Like hell you are.”

She gave him a very satisfied smile. “And honey, I’m not nearly as easy as you seem to think I am. Once we get off this damn boat, where are you going to take me on our first date?”

J
ENNER CAME OUT OF THE BATHROOM IN HER PAJAMAS
, her face freshly scrubbed, her nipples pebbled against her thin tank. It was all Cael could do not to groan. He had to be the biggest fool on earth, to think he was in control of anything where she was concerned. He’d known she was going to be trouble the first time she opened her mouth. He just hadn’t known how much trouble—or what kind.

She picked up the conversation they’d been having before she’d changed as if there had been no break. “So,” she mused. “CIA? NSA? FBI?” A hint of a smile teased the corners of her lips. “Coast Guard? Since we’re partners now, there’s no reason for you to hold out on me.”

He had to set her straight, sooner rather than later. “We’re
not
partners.”

She was unshaken, completely unaffected by his edict. “I say we are. So, details, please. What have you gotten me into?”

He considered turning his back, but that could be dangerous, and ignoring Jenner Redwine was getting more and more difficult. In the end, he didn’t even try. Maybe she’d earned the truth. “Let’s just say that not everyone who does work for the government actually works for the government.”

“That’s as clear as mud.”

“No dental, no pension plan …”

“Contract work,” she said, without even a hint of alarm in her voice.

It was dangerous for her to know too much, but she was already in a dangerous position. She already knew too damn much. He nodded once, and returned his attention to the audio and video he’d been reviewing before she’d interrupted him. Larkin had opened his laptop tonight, but it was hard to tell if he’d signed onto the Internet or not. If he had, Faith would have the details shortly. Might be nothing, but then again, maybe there would be a clue about what he was up to with Mills.

He didn’t handcuff Jenner to the chair. Why bother? She’d had several chances to blow his cover and she hadn’t done it. If she’d headed out the door when he’d told her she was free, would he have stopped her? Maybe, maybe not. Didn’t matter; she was still here.

A
date
?

She crawled into bed, pulled the covers to her chin, said good night, and closed her eyes.

Like it or not, she was into the shit damn near as deeply as he was.

J
ENNER WOKE A COUPLE OF TIMES
, realized Cael still wasn’t in the bed with her, and opened one eye to see that he still sat in the chair by the bed, watching and listening to the man next door. What could be so important that he’d rather be over there than in bed with her?

She sighed. While she knew very few details, she knew what he was doing was truly important. She’d heard enough, seen enough to know that much.

The bed dipped, waking her, when Cael finally came to bed. She sighed, rolled toward him, and found him propped on his elbow watching her. “What is it?” she asked, then blinked when she saw he was naked. Completely.

“My turn,” he said, and pulled her under him.

She shot awake, her heartbeat going from normal to shuttle blastoff in something like a tenth of a second. His heavy weight crushed her into the mattress. “What? Wait!”

“Wait, my ass,” he said in a goaded tone as he grabbed the hem of her tank top and dragged it off over her head. The sudden exposure sent her senses reeling, and she would have done something totally silly like covering her breasts if he hadn’t shackled her wrists with his hands and pinned them to the pillow on each side of her head as he looked down at her. In the lamplight she could see the way his features clenched, and her nipples pinched tight in response—not from the cold, not a simple reaction to being touched, but a response to
him
, all heat and power and dark sex.

He slid farther down in the bed, still holding her wrists, and clamped his mouth over one thrusting nipple. Pleasure so sharp it was almost pain shot through her breast. She made a keening sound as his tongue stabbed at her nipple, circled it, before he sucked hard and deep. She bucked under the lash of sensation, straining against his grip, his weight, those wilds sounds still coming from her mouth.

He made a rough sound against her breast, and released one hand so he could reach down and give a mighty tug at her pajama bottoms, shaking her out of them as if he were shaking a pillow out of a pillowcase. He had to completely turn her loose to accomplish the job and she tumbled to the other side of the bed. He dragged her back into position and covered her, putting his hands behind her knees and lifting them around him.

If the past few tumultuous minutes counted as foreplay, that was all she got. He reached down between them, said,
“Fuck!”
in a strained voice, and reached for the bedside table. Blinking in confusion, Jenner turned her head and stared in amazement at the number of foil packs scattered across the tabletop.

“Holy hell,” she blurted.

He tore open the foil, rolled the condom on with a few fast,
rough motions, and pushed into her—that fast, that hard, that intent.

She sucked in a deep breath, half-closing her eyes as she absorbed the sensation. She was just barely wet enough to take him, and he was so thick and long … another of those helpless, keening sounds burst from her throat. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she tried to anchor herself, but he was taking exactly what she had offered. As he’d said, it was his turn, so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gave herself over to him.

He thrust hard and deep, no finesse, just a raw drive to climax. The power and heft of him pushed her over the edge almost before she realized she was there. She came hard, clenching around him, and with a muffled curse he came, too, his almost savage rhythm changing to something slower and deeper as he rode the crest.

The silence in the bedroom after was broken only by the gasps of their breathing, as if they’d both run a marathon. Cael pulled out of her and collapsed beside her, his body gleaming with sweat. Jenner felt as if her entire body were throbbing from the force of her heartbeats. That hadn’t been like anything she’d experienced before. It hadn’t been amazing, or great, or any of the other adjectives she’d heard used to describe sex. It had been powerful and primal, stripped down to the simplest form—no polish, no technique, though she was certain he had them. He had fucked her. He had
mated
her.

Until now, until this final step, she would still have been able to step back, but not now. This had gone too far. A man didn’t make love to a woman like that and walk away unscathed.

Panting, she lifted her head and met his gaze, brilliant blue under narrowed lids, his expression both hard and extremely satisfied with himself. Then she looked at the bedside table, estimating the number of condoms. Looking back at him she said, “You’re in big trouble now, cowboy.”

“You think so?” he asked, reaching out for a fresh condom. “Brace yourself; you’re in for a rough night. We’ll count coup in the morning.”

*  *  *

L
ARKIN COULDN’T SLEEP.
He got out of bed and paced the suite, feeling as if ants were crawling on him. Something was wrong. Something was out of kilter, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Finally he realized what it was, and went to the suite’s main door to jerk it open and stick his head into the hallway. The guard on duty, Johnson, straightened with a jerk. “Is anything wrong, Mr. Larkin?”

Larkin glared at him. “You can go,” he said sharply. Johnson looked surprised. “But Mr. Larkin, I thought …” “Don’t think,” Frank said. “You might hurt yourself.” He hadn’t been thinking clearly himself, apparently. While the suite was more secure if there was a man at the door, and he worried less about the eyes he sometimes felt on him, it would also be harder to find the privacy he needed when the time came for him to set the timers on the bombs. These yahoos thought all the bombs would be detonated by manual triggers, but that wasn’t the case. The bombs they’d planted belowdeck, in places he couldn’t access without arousing suspicion, were operated by the trigger in his possession. The incendiary bombs on the public decks were on a timer, which he would set himself, early in the morning of his last day on this earth.

The morons also thought the triggers they had in their possession were operational, but they were merely toys. He had the single working trigger, and he’d use it at the proper time, well before they were expecting it. If there was a guard on his door at all times, how would he get away to set those timers? He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he’d ordered Mills to set up the constant watch. It was the tumor, the damned cancer that had stolen his ability to reason.

Johnson left and Larkin closed the door, reveling in the seclusion that had become his life. He trusted no one. He needed no one. And that was a good thing, because he had no one.

*  *  *

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Cael watched, narrow-eyed, as Jenner got dressed. The night between hadn’t eased the stress of being around her. He was beginning to feel a real sense of terror that this particular stress would never ease. They’d done normal things this morning: showering, eating breakfast, and still all he could think about was getting back inside her. After the night they’d spent, logically he should be hours, maybe even days, from being ready for sex again. She was trying to kill him. Slowly, painfully. He’d rather be shot; it would hurt less.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

Jenner glanced down. “It’s just a sundress.”

That was like saying they were “just breasts.” The thin fabric of her blue sundress draped over her like a second skin; the skirt was knee length, showing off fine legs. Even her feet, in another pair of those ridiculous sandals, were sexy as hell.