On Thin Ice (16 page)

“Even a lesbian nun.”

“I’m neither a lesbian nor a nun.”

“I know.”

The unspoken words hung between them. What would that mouth taste like? Would it be disapproval and impatience? Or sweet, yielding promise? She was looking up at him, not shifting her gaze, and it drew him so that he felt his head dipping down, so close . . .

“Damn, that bathroom was foul to begin with!” Dylan slammed open the door again, and MacGowan pulled back without speed, turning to look at him. “You’re gonna wanna keep out of there for the next half hour, Sister Beth. I took a dump to beat all dumps, and . . .”

“I don’t think Beth wasn’t to hear the details of our digestive system,” MacGowan drawled. “The two of you behave and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“After you work off some of your three years,” Beth said.

He grinned at her. “Yeah, that too.” He headed for the door, and to his surprise Beth followed him. Dylan was already stretched out on the bed, his veil off again, his skirts pulled up to expose his rolled up jeans.

Finn paused in the open door. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

He sighed. “Step into my office,” he said, and she followed him into the hall, closing the door behind them.

The corridor was deserted and dimly lit, half the light bulbs burned out. He crowded her against the wall. Physical intimidation had only been partially successful with her, but he needed to keep trying, and he loomed over her, radiating impatience. He needed to get away from her before he made another mistake.

“I just want to make sure you’re coming back,” she said.

“Jesus Christ, woman, how many times do I have to tell you?” he exploded softly. “I don’t lie to you.”

“You just did.”

He stared down in confusion. “When?”

“You forget that I lived in Talaca. There are no working girls at the cantina – only Jimena whose husband owns the bar and would gut anyone who put a hand on her. I went looking for you last night – you kept guard outside the gate. So if you lied about that, you’re probably lying about other things.”

For the first time in a long while he felt stupid. He had enough sense not to bother with an unnecessary lie, and yet he’d given her one, a clumsy, easily disproved one. He shrugged. “I just thought it would set your mind at ease.”

“Why?”

“So you wouldn’t be afraid I’d jump your bones. You’re the first gringa I’ve been around, and I . . .”

“I don’t think you give a damn whether I’m a gringa or not,” she interrupted him. “And I don’t see why you have to keep telling me that you aren’t going to touch me. I believe you. Maybe you were slightly tempted by the first female you’d seen in years, but you’ve come to your senses and now you wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole. I get it. I just wanted . . .”

He didn’t wait to see what she wanted. Before he even realized what he was doing, he’d pulled her into his arms, against his body, slid his hands beneath the thick cloth of the wimple and put his mouth on hers.

The moment their lips touched the two of them froze. And then he moved, tilting her head back, pushing her mouth open, sliding his tongue inside and kissing her so fucking hard that he could feel his cock stiffen painfully in his jeans. It didn’t matter. He lifted his head, glaring down at her, into her dazed eyes.

“Kiss me back, damn you,” he said, and ducked his head again.

This time she did. And damned if she didn’t kiss like a nun. She wasn’t used to using her tongue, wasn’t used to giving up everything with a kiss, and he had to show her. Stupid as it was, he was more than happy to do so, letting his tongue tease hers, lead her, seduce her, so that she was shaking in his arms and making soft little noises that drove him crazy. He wanted to fumble under the cassock and shift his cock so the damned thing wouldn’t be crushed, and for half a moment he considered diving under her skirts and taking her then and there. He could seduce her into letting him, but with his luck, some good Catholic would come up the stairs to see a priest shagging a nun, and that would blow their cover big-time.

He pushed his erection against her, just in case she missed the point, rubbing for an endless, blissful moment as she panted into his mouth, and he knew that beneath all those layers of heavy cloth her nipples would be hard and sweet like cherries.

And then he pulled back, quickly, while he still could. “Get back in the room before everyone finds out I’m not your everyday priest,” he said hoarsely. “You can see why I’m going to take a little time on my way back. I’m so fucking horny I’d shag a pig.”

“Lovely,” she said caustically. Her mouth was swollen from his, and he realized he’d just called her a pig. She shoved him away, hard. “We’ll wait until noon tomorrow. If you’re not back by then we’re going to set off by ourselves.”

No one had given him an ultimatum in twenty years. They wouldn’t dare. He stared down at her in shock.

“You heard me,” she snapped. “Now go find yourself another pig.”

The door slammed behind her.

He didn’t tend to let other people get the last word. He was Irish, after all, and while his father had been a murdering, grandiose whoreson and drunkard, he also had the soul of a poet. He’d been able to draw people to him, to convince his wife to stay with him after all the drunken beatings, including the one that had killed his unborn baby sister.

No, he was his father’s son. A right bastard, ready to ruin a woman for his own needs and nothing more. He glanced at the tightly shut door. He wished he dared lock them in, but that could cause more trouble than it was worth. He had complete faith in Beth’s ability to keep Dylan under control, faith in her solid judgment. She wouldn’t take off at noon tomorrow unless she had good reason to believe he was done. No fool, his Beth.

She wasn’t his Beth, he reminded himself, wiping the taste of her from his mouth. She was a meal ticket, nothing more.

He shoved his overlong hair behind him, wondering what the hotel clerk had thought of a priest with hair past his shoulders. But no, he’d been more interest in soccer than in paying customers. He probably wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone a thing about them, if anyone should come asking.

He looked at the door one last time. He could drag Dylan out, tie him up and leave him in the toilet while he finished what he and Sister Beth had started. He wasn’t going to do that. He was going to go off, take care of business, and get royally fucked.

Hopefully not at the same time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Tell Peter to watch his back.” The message was loud and clear.

“You need me to come there?” Bastien had offered.

“The day I can’t handle a hothead like MacGowan will be the day I deserve to get a knife between the shoulders,” he’d replied.

“I doubt Genny would feel the same way.”

It wasn’t going to happen. Peter pushed away from the computer to limp over the window. MacGowan wasn’t the backstabbing kind – if he had a problem with you the knife would go straight into your heart with him looking you in the eye. Nothing sneaky about Finn MacGowan.

And he wouldn’t make a move without being certain who had failed him. The damnable thing was, Peter had failed him.

It didn’t matter how many dead ends and false trails Thomason had set up. It didn’t matter that the Committee was in freefall, that Isobel had disappeared, and half their operatives had been murdered. He should have made certain. He should have gone to Callivera himself, except that he’d promised Genevieve, and he couldn’t afford to leave with no one to take over.

And they were so short-staffed there was no one else to send.

People disappeared in that country all the time, and their bones were found bleached and brittle in old mines and ancient caves, with only DNA to figure out who was there. And MacGowan was one of the best in the world – there was no way anyone could keep him on ice for three years. No reason. If they hadn’t let him go, if he hadn’t escaped, then he was dead. It was that simple.

Apparently it wasn’t. And MacGowan was coming home, at last, to find out just how and why he’d been abandoned. Harry Thomason, the treacherous former head of the Committee, had held with the firm belief that it was every man for himself. Peter was a pragmatist, but in the end he believed you never left a man behind, not if there was any way around it. If he’d just pushed a little harder . . .

He wasn’t a man who wasted time with ifs. Even if he couldn’t leave England at the moment, he could see what he could do to grease MacGowan’s way home. Though whether that was simply speeding up a fight to the death was debatable.

For some reason the CIA was nosing around in Callivera, looking for MacGowan. He couldn’t imagine why – he’d gone over MacGowan’s file and hadn’t found anything that would excite the boys at Langley. As far as he could tell MacGowan had never interacted with the CIA. Their sudden curiosity made him uneasy.

Hell, everything was making him uneasy nowadays. Genny would tell him his spidey-senses were acting up. She watched too many movies, curled up on the sofa beside him while he read, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t bother telling her they weren’t spidey-senses; they were finely honed, well-trained instincts. When you were an operative with his level of experience you knew when something bad was going to happen.

You also knew when there wasn’t a damned thing you could do about it, and that was now. All he could do was wait and see if MacGowan came to his senses.

He wasn’t holding his breath.

Beth came back into the room, closing the door quietly behind her before going to sit on the bed. Dylan was sprawled out, looking sulky as always, and she considered trying to engage him in conversation, just to distract him. And distract herself.

She could still feel Finn’s mouth on hers. His hard body pressed against every inch of her. Three years, she reminded herself. It meant nothing.

But it hadn’t felt like nothing. It felt like something that had been building between them since the moment he’d first handed her his hoarded chocolate in the darkness of the shack high up in the mountains.

She was a sensible, grounded woman. Her reaction to his kiss was pure instinct and had nothing to do with civilized behavior. He had come in and saved her life, defended her from rape and death, taken her from danger to safety, and while she was still in this fight or flight mode she felt ridiculously . . . beholden was an odd word, but it fit. She felt as if, God help her, she belonged to him.

Was it a Chinese saying? That if you saved a life, that life now belonged to you? She could see where that came from. She didn’t even want to think about where she’d be if he hadn’t gotten her out of there. And it had nothing to do with owing him, or ransom, or the money he was demanding. He would have done it without the money and they both knew it. It was part of the game he played.

And until she could get her head on straight, get her ass back to civilization, she belonged to him. Body and soul.

“You look like you just saw a giant spider,” Dylan said in a sulky voice.

It surprised a laugh from her. “It’s been an interesting few days.”

“Dude,” Dylan said, which Beth gathered meant he agreed. “You suppose they’re really going to bring us food?”

“If they don’t we’ll go find some,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to sit here and starve while he goes out to . . .” What was he going to do? It was early evening. He said he was going to make arrangements. Chances were he was going to get laid and eat steak while the two of them were trapped in this dismal hotel room.

Then again, if he came back stinking of some back alley whore, then the magic would have worn off. He would no longer be sending out those subtle and not so subtle waves of longing, and for her part she expected her fascination to end. After all, she’d decided sex wasn’t her thing, and it was crazy to let gratitude and proximity make her think otherwise.

Whores were one thing. If the man came to her stinking of steak she was going to kill him.

She got off the bed, restless, and paced toward the door. She could hear voices coming up from below, and she tried the door. She opened it, peering outside, when she noticed the tray on the floor.

She snatched it up quickly – God knew what kinds of vermin were crawling around this place. Whatever they were, they probably lived in the kitchen as well, but she wasn’t going to think about it. “Beans and rice and some kind of meat,” she said, bringing the tray in and setting it on the table, kicking the door shut with her foot.

Dylan sat up, suddenly cheerful. “Is that wine?”

“You’re too young.”

He just gave her a look. “You want to know how long I’ve been drinking?”

“Not particularly.” Since he’d already straddled one of the chairs and poured himself a glass she didn’t bother to argue. She took the other seat, grabbed one of the plates and began to eat.

Dylan was looking at her strangely. “Aren’t you going to say grace?”

“You know I’m not really a nun,” she said sternly.

“Well, yeah, but aren’t you some kind of religious fanatic? I mean, you worked in that mission and all.”

She ignored the searing pain at the memory of Father Pascal and the long, busy, happy hours. The children. “No, I’m not some kind of religious fanatic. I just wanted to make a difference.” The food wasn’t bad – very spicy, and the wine was rough and almost medicinal-tasting, but since MacGowan probably wasn’t coming back for hours it probably wouldn’t hurt to drink enough to help her sleep. “So tell me about your family. What was it like to grow up in Hollywood?”

“You mean you want me to tell you about my father,” Dylan said cynically, refilling his wine glass.

“No,” she said patiently. “Your father was never my type. I was never big on muscle-bound action heroes. I’m interested in you.”

“More of your social work?” There was an unpleasant sneer on his mouth. “There’s not much to tell. I was a poor little rich boy. My parents weren’t around much, but they made up for it by buying me anything my heart desired.”

“They must be frantic.”