Caught in the Act (17 page)

“Oh my God,” Kari whispered, reaching out to him. “Adam, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” he said, warding off her touch. “For almost two years I tailed Moreno every chance I could get, fantasizing about strangling him with my bare hands. It took a long time for me to let go of my anger and give up on vengeance. I’d still rather kill him than do his bidding. Do you understand?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, nodding miserably.

He took a business card from his pocket and scribbled his cell number on the back. “If you want to talk about
your
involvement with Moreno, I’m available,” he said, handing it to her. “If not, this is goodbye. I had a nice time.”

After a brusque kiss on the cheek, he left the store.

He’d lied to her, of course. He hadn’t abandoned his vendetta or gained control of his anger. Those dark feelings
were as strong and corrosive as ever, bubbling up beneath the surface, eating him up inside.

Ian awoke, disoriented.

His throat was dry and he had a mild headache, like a hangover. Although the hotel room was dark, he was vaguely aware of its basic layout. He rose from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, turning on the light.

Wincing at the harsh brightness, he took a piss and washed his slack face, drinking water straight from the sink. Feeling a little better, he went back to bed.

The details were fuzzy, but he knew where he was. He also knew whom he was with. Maria Santos was lying next to him, one slender arm resting above her head, dark hair spilling across the pillow.

He wasn’t clear on why they were here, though he remembered showering with her. Instead of trying to make sense of the past few hours, which were inaccessible, he focused on what they were going to do next.

Leaving the hotel seemed like a good idea. On the other hand, there was a beautiful, half-naked woman in bed with him.

Ian couldn’t stop staring at her.

She’d wrapped a towel around her body after the shower, but it had fallen open at some point during the night. Now she was enticingly revealed. Her bra and underwear were plain white cotton, sort of pristine-looking. Damp, the fabric appeared paper thin. He could see the dark circles of her nipples and the shadowy triangle between her legs.

She was slender, but with lovely feminine curves. She had a flat, sexy stomach and gently flared hips. Her
breasts were small, delicate. Although they wouldn’t fill his palm, he ached to cup her.

Ian’s brain wasn’t functioning properly, but his cock was working overtime. Blood rushed from his head to his groin, swelling him to an almost painful degree.

He studied her face, the sweep of her eyelashes, her soft, parted lips. His erection throbbed with every heartbeat. The urge to wrap his hand around it and stroke himself off while he watched her sleep was overwhelming.

She sighed dreamily and rolled over, treating him to a view of her heart-shaped bottom. Then she snuggled closer, fitting that pretty backside against his upright dick.

Ian smothered a groan. He knew he shouldn’t touch her. Engaging in sexual activity as an undercover agent was grounds for termination, and he didn’t even think she was willing. He had a faint recollection of her slapping his hands away earlier.

She hadn’t brought him here to ball him.

His sense of chivalry told him to get up and leave the room. But that sense was dull in comparison to his desire. He could smell her hair, her skin, the delicious chemistry of warm female and damp fabric.

She shifted in her sleep, restless.

He leaned forward a fraction, burying his nose in her hair. God, she smelled good. With a trembling hand, he touched her slim waist, skimming his fingertips along her side. Her skin felt like silk.

She moved again, wiggling her cute little bottom, and he was lost. His hips jerked forward, grinding into her. When she didn’t protest, he didn’t stop. Flattening his
palm over her belly, he pressed his erection harder against her buttocks.

She gasped, arching her spine.

One of his hands wandered up to her breasts, finding taut nipples and tender flesh. With a low groan, he pushed aside the damp cotton, teasing the puckered tips. His other hand slid between her legs, cupping her sex. She covered his hand with hers and moaned, practically begging for his cock. He wanted to give it to her. He wanted to yank down her panties and take her like this, from behind.

He might have gone ahead and done it if she hadn’t frozen suddenly and bolted away from him, scrambling off the mattress. She stared at him, wide-eyed. The air between them went from hot and steamy to cold and tense.

“Que haces?”
she whispered, tugging her bra into place.

Ian realized that he’d mistaken her dreamlike state for a pleasurable response. She hadn’t given consent; she’d been asleep, unaware.

Several layers of understanding struck him at once, and the repercussions were staggering. The first time he’d seen Maria Santos, she’d been lying in a crumpled heap on the sand dunes near an unofficial border crossing called El Caracol. She’d been beaten within an inch of her life and raped repeatedly.

Last week Chuy had dragged her to his back room, almost assaulting her. That must have brought back bad memories. She’d risked her neck to help him yesterday. She’d tried to sober him up, stayed by his side.

And what had he done to repay her? Groped her while she slept.

His behavior was so inexcusable he felt sick.
“Lo siento,”
he groaned, wanting to crawl under a rock and die.
“Soy bien cabrón.”

She straightened, seeming unfazed by his gross misconduct. “I speak English now, remember?”

Ian knew there was something off about the way she said that, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Still disoriented from the opiates, he repeated his apology in English. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

Shrugging, Maria handed him a can of soda from the nightstand. “Can you walk,
señor
? We have to leave.”

He sipped the Coke with a grimace. It was flat.

She took the soda back and drank from it also, studying him with a curious expression. “You should get dressed.”

Although Ian’s ardor had cooled, his erection hadn’t subsided. After a long dry spell, it was desperate for attention, embarrassingly stiff. He clenched his teeth and thought of ice. “I need a minute.”

Her gaze fell to his lap and lingered there, which didn’t help at all.

“Maybe you should get dressed first,” he said, stealing another glance at her chest. Her nipples poked against the fabric of her bra, taunting him.

“Oh,” she breathed, clapping her hands over her small breasts. Whirling around, she grabbed a neat stack of clothing and retreated to the bathroom, giving him some much-needed privacy.

She didn’t seem traumatized. Her mild reaction didn’t assuage his guilt, however.

He’d always carried a torch for her. At first it was her spirit he’d been attracted to. She’d been battered, but she wasn’t broken. Every day he visited her in the hospital,
she’d cheered
him
up with her strength and optimism.

As the bruises faded, her beauty shone through, and he couldn’t stop staring at her. There was an innocence about her that discouraged lustful thoughts, and she’d just been attacked, so he kept his distance. She was also barely legal, eighteen to his twenty-four. Too young for the hardships she’d endured. Although she appeared to be healing well, he didn’t think she’d recover emotionally for months or years to come.

Even so, he was drawn to her. She’d almost died in his arms the day he’d found her, and he felt protective of her.

He wanted to keep her safe.

It was impossible, of course. As soon as she was released from the hospital, she’d been taken back to Mexico on a bus full of migrant workers who’d been caught at the border, attempting to enter the country illegally. He hadn’t asked for her contact information, and he’d never said goodbye.

His inability to act on her behalf weighed heavily on him. He hated filing an incident report for a crime that couldn’t be investigated in the United States because it occurred on foreign soil. Mexican officials wouldn’t scour the desert for rape suspects. They had few resources and even fewer incentives to make hard-hitting arrests. There was no justice for Maria on either side of the border.

Ian rose from the bed, frustrated. With some difficulty he wrestled into his pants, buttoning the fly and securing his belt. His T-shirt was damp and smelled like bar soap. Maria had washed it, he realized, feeling another wave of regret.

She was a sweet girl. And he was a sick, horny motherfucker.

Wanting to punch himself, he flipped open his cell phone and sent a quick text to his superior, who was probably frothing at the mouth. He made up an excuse about a dying battery and promised to check in later.

When Maria came out of the bathroom, her hair was tied back at the nape of her neck and her cheeks looked freshly scrubbed. He wondered if she knew that her hair had been his undoing. He’d kill to bury his face in it again.

“Ready?” she asked, her brows arched.

He nodded, turning to the window to push the blinds aside. The courtyard was dimly lit, deserted. “Looks clear.”

They left the Hotel del Oro without incident.

Ian glanced at Maria as they walked down E Street, thinking that he owed her his life. If Chuy or Armando had seen him stumbling around yesterday, doped to the gills, he’d have been executed on the spot.

He was glad to be here, with her, alive.

It was a beautiful night, warm and breezy. The blistering sun and heavy traffic that usually marked his journey didn’t exist at this hour. “Thank you for helping me,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

She smiled at him, surprised. “You’re welcome.”

He wished he could take her out somewhere and thank her properly. Denny’s was open. But he couldn’t risk spending time with a woman who’d known him as Agent Foster. Instead he pulled his money clip out of his pocket. He had two twenties. “Take this.”

She closed her hand around his, shaking her head. “Please. It was nothing. You have been very kind.”

“No, I—treated you badly.”

“When?”

“You know when.”

Her eyes softened. “That was not bad,
señor
. You did not harm me.” She switched to Spanish, needing the ease to explain herself. “I was startled when I woke up, and I thought it would be better to stop before things went too far.”

“You were afraid?” he asked in English, more comfortable in a bilingual conversation. She understood his language better than she could speak it, and vice versa.

“Only that you would expect too much.”

He nodded, still conflicted about what he’d done. “You should expect men to listen if you say no at any point.”

“What we hope for and what we get are often two different things,” she said simply.

He swore under his breath, wanting to throttle everyone who’d wronged her. “It wasn’t right for me to take advantage of you. I wasn’t … myself.” That was a bullshit excuse, but he didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t admit that she’d haunted his dreams for years, or that he’d been dying to touch her.

She lifted her hand to his face, her expression troubled. “What happened to you,
señor
? You look like a man who has lost his way.”

The irony overwhelmed him. He’d finally found her, and lost himself.

Feeling pressure behind his eyes, he walked her to the corner and hailed a cab. Giving the driver a twenty, he let her slip away again.

* * *

After Adam left, Kari opened up her laptop and logged on to the Internet, doing a search for Penelope Mendes.

Her death had sparked public outrage. She was a local girl, born and raised in San Diego, a CSU graduate with a bright future. The media ran with her story, partly because she was one of their own, a member of the press, but also because she was gorgeous. It was a tragedy for someone so lovely to be killed in the crossfire. She had become a symbol for the war on drugs, a talking point for gun control.

Penelope’s smiling face had graced every newspaper, every television screen. She was stylish and sophisticated, the ultimate border-town beauty queen.

Kari couldn’t find a mention of Adam, although it had been widely reported that Penelope was engaged to her college sweetheart. Perhaps his name had been withheld because he was employed by Homeland Security. There was a picture of her grave site at Chula Vista Memorial, a close-up of a heart-shaped bouquet.

Kari closed the screen, her chest aching.

She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t smuggle for Moreno, not after being with Adam, not after seeing this. It would be an unconscionable betrayal. Over the next week she had to figure something else out.

Sasha hadn’t been returning her calls. She’d said it was dangerous to go to the police, and Kari believed her. Penelope Mendes’s murder had never been solved for a reason. Testifying against a drug lord was suicide.

She wanted to talk to Adam and confess everything. She had to make things right between them. But she suspected that he cared more about nailing Moreno than about protecting her. He might not be sympathetic to her plight at all.

She’d lied to him, used his body, and accused him of being a dirty cop.

“God,” she muttered, hating herself. “When I screw up, I don’t do it halfway.”

Pushing away from the front counter, she grabbed her things and locked the back door, walking out into the balmy night. She drove by the Hotel del Oro but didn’t see Maria. Worried and exhausted, she went home.

She took a long, lukewarm shower, her mind numb. Although she should have felt like a sleaze for sleeping with a man she hardly knew, memories of their encounter elicited pleasure rather than shame. She’d never enjoyed sex so much. Wanton need had overpowered her, washing away all rational thought.

She only wished he’d made it last longer.

If she could do it again, she’d have brushed her lips over his hard chest and flat stomach, giving him a sultry look while she sank to her knees. He’d have fisted his hand in her hair, blurring reality as she took him in her mouth.