The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (47 page)

“Are you looking for me?”

Randy turned to see Geoff climb through the ropes and drop to the floor. Blood oozed from a cut on his temple and sweat sheened his body as he walked toward her. He’d already pulled off his gloves, but he was still breathing heavily from the exertion, and she could almost see the heat rising off his brawny shoulders.

Randy’s pulse raced out of control as he came to a stop just inches from her. He even smelled of the kill—of male power and animal instincts, of steamy sweat and last night’s liquor. It was a pungent combination, still humming with the threat of physical force.

“Yes, I was looking for you,” she said, refusing to give way to the trepidation that thinned her voice. “I was hoping we could talk.”

“Talk?” He looked her over, lingering on the slit of her wraparound skirt as if considering the possibilities. “I was hoping for the rest of the striptease. Or at least a matched pair of nylons.”

There it was, that lazy, sexy smile again.

He was baiting her once more, Randy realized. He might look deadly, but that flash of emerald in his eyes was nothing more than another sexy challenge. Damn if he didn’t make her want to take her clothes off, just to show him!

“I only strip for total strangers,” she informed him sweetly. “However, if it’s nylons you need, there’s a supermarket down the street. Try support hose, queen size.”

A grin flashed—quick and cocky, irresistible. “On second thought,” he said, wiping away the moisture that was trickling down his face, “what I need is a shower. You’re welcome to come watch.”

Her grimace let him know what she thought of that idea. “No thanks, sport. I’ll just wait here.”

“Not a good idea.”

“What?”

“Waiting here. I’d advise against it.”

“Why?”

He indicated the pack of gym rats who had greeted her when she came in. “The natives are restless, and a tender little morsel like you would provide them with countless hours of entertainment pleasure. I’ve got a thought—”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, and good luck hanging onto it.” She nodded curtly and turned toward the door. “Let me know when you’re done with your shower. I’ll be waiting in my car.”

“Randy—”

She kept walking.

“
Ranndeee
—”

Sighing, she turned back to his roguish smile.

“Great ass,” he assured her, his laughter shimmering with husky masculine nuances. “I was going to suggest that you park it on a chair in my office next door. You’ll be safer there.”

His office, roughly the size of a large walk-in closet, looked as if it had been decorated by teenage vandals. There was no receptionist in sight, no typewriter, no file cabinets, and no place to sit. Randy couldn’t have parked her “great ass” if she’d wanted to. Even his desk chair was piled high with mercenary newspapers, gun catalogs, maps, telephone books, and the requisite girlie magazines.

His filing system consisted of stacked boxes full of folders. Fortunately, she wasn’t hiring him to do clerical work. A busy mercenary probably didn’t have time to file, she conceded, trying to be charitable as she surveyed the posters on his walls—of guns, of naked women, of naked women with guns. He wasn’t shy about his personal preferences.

Randy felt less and less charitable the longer she waited for Geoff Dias, and by the time he strolled in, some forty-five minutes later, she was exasperated.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

He hooked a thumb in the ripped-out sleeve hole of his sweatshirt. “I wanted to look presentable.”

Presentable, indeed. He was wearing the same sweats he’d had on when he entered the gym, but what she hadn’t noticed then was the way they hung on his body, loose here, clinging there, especially to his lower torso. Nearly threadbare in places, the cotton material seemed to have formed a permanent attraction to certain parts of his muscular thighs and backside, accentuating every ripple and bulge.

For Randy, who preferred cerebral types like Hugh, Geoff Dias was one of the most blatantly physical men she’d ever encountered. And easily one of the most sexual, she admitted reluctantly. It was almost impossible to be in his presence without envisioning naked, flexing muscles and gleaming flesh. She even found herself imagining feverish sounds—virile grunts and moans, gasps of gratification. Weight lifting, she told herself. That’s all the naked muscles were doing. Pumping iron!

“What can I do for you?” he asked amiably.

“You can quit playing games,” she said, more irritated by the way her thoughts were straying than by anything he’d done. Every encounter with him was a tug-of-war, and she felt as if she were constantly losing ground.

“I don’t have time for such nonsense, so let’s get down to business, shall we?” She opened her purse, took out a stack of twenties and set it down on his desk. “This is twice your fee for one week’s work. Are you going to take the job or not?”

He settled himself on the desk, then picked up the stack and thumbed through it, counting the bills. It was a lot of money, and Randy could only hope that a man of his seemingly modest means would be reluctant to pass up such a windfall.

“Twice my fee?” he said, glancing up. He set the money down, drew a twenty off the top and began to roll the bill into a tight cylinder. When he finished, he slipped the twenty between his fingers as if it were a cigarette he was about to bring to his lips. “That’s a lot of cash,” he said softly.

Randy resisted the urge to back up as he rose and walked toward her. She couldn’t imagine what he intended, but she grew very still as he touched the rolled bill to her mouth lightly, then increased the pressure, denting the fullness of her lips. She wanted to turn away, but fascination kept her from doing it. Her senses were thrumming with anticipation. Her mouth had gone dry, her palms wet.

What was he going to do?

A whisper of cool air answered her question. With a soft jolt of alarm, she realized he’d slipped his index finger inside the neckline of her wraparound dress. He was lifting the silky material away from her skin. She glanced down as he exposed her breasts to his view, creamy half-moons swelling from the cups of her black lace demi-bra. Erotic glimpses of pink aureole were also visible. A pulse began to tick in her throat.

His breathing deepened as he studied what he’d exposed. His hesitation gave Randy a twinge of satisfaction. She had no idea what he’d expected to see, but apparently it wasn’t black lace and partially exposed nipples.

Unfortunately, he regained his composure quickly.

Withdrawing his hand, he cupped her chin and brought her head up slowly, challenging her to meet his gaze. Weakness washed over Randy. His emerald green eyes were catlike, rich and hypnotic. Again, she had that flash of déj
à
vu, even more powerful than the day before. Why did she feel as if she knew him from somewhere?

“Have we met before?” she asked. The question evaporated in a rush of sensation as he began to stroke her cheek with his thumb. The pleasure of his touch was so intense, so unexpected, that Randy couldn’t move. Her legs felt weighted, her ankles unsteady. She was aware of several things at once—the heat of his skin, its sensual pressure, and the edge of his thumbnail, gently abrading, sharply pleasurable. Deep in her stomach, muscles tautened.

She had no idea how long he held her spellbound that way, caressing her face while he touched her with the tightly rolled bill in more and more intimate ways. His lingers grazed her skin as he drew the money down her throat and over her collarbone, raising a flushed trail of excitement on her pale flesh. When his hand reached the trembling warmth of her cleavage, it stopped. He stared into her eyes, smiling.

“I thought I told you, sweetness,” he said. “You can’t afford me.”

He tucked the bill deeply into her bra, brushing his knuckles up against her taut nipple, caressing her naked flesh and generally taking lewd and unfair advantage of her frozen astonishment to his heart’s content before he released her. Randy’s reaction was a choked protest. Before she could manage much else, he’d removed the offending hand and stepped back.

She watched in bewilderment as he walked to the desk, picked up the telephone, and jabbed a number as if she weren’t there.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Making a phone call.”

“Couldn’t it
wait
? We’re having a fight!”

“A fight about what?” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You made me an offer. I turned you down.”

“You fondled me!”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” His irreverent gaze came to rest on her breasts.

“Stop that! You perverted—”

He waved her silent
. “Buenos días, Rico! Cómo está usted
?” he shouted as whoever he’d been calling came on the line.

Randy felt as if she’d had a bucket of cold water thrown in her face. She could hardly believe the arrogance. If she’d had any doubts about Geoff Dias’s go-to-hell attitude, the back of his sweatshirt answered them when he turned full around. Printed in neat block letters were the words
UP YOURS, AMIGO
. Apparently, he’d read the book on guerrilla management tactics too.

She was too angry even to consider the intelligent solution, which would have been to cut her losses and leave. Her competitive instincts had been triggered yesterday by the first glint of his green eyes. By now they were armed and ready. She had no intention of giving up her quest to hire him, but her anger at the moment had more to do with salving wounded pride than with failed business negotiations. Outrage didn’t seem to have the slightest affect on him, and as much as she might have wanted to snatch the phone out of his hand and carry out the instructions on his sweatshirt, she couldn’t let herself. Cool heads prevailed, she reminded herself. She had to collect her wits and be as cool as he was. Cooler.

Her chiropractor had given her some breathing techniques for eliminating tension, but she needed something faster, something foolproof.

“E ... N ... O,” she murmured, mentally reciting each letter as she said it out loud. “O ... W ... T.” Counting to ten might work for others, but like a high-performance race car, Randy’s temper required more sophisticated braking power. Years ago she’d started spelling the numbers backward as she counted. It required sufficient concentration that she often forgot what she was angry about before she got to ten.

She was on ytnewt-enin as Geoff hung up the phone.

“I’d like a moment of your time,” she said politely.

“Try me tomorrow.” He punched out another number.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” But her protest fell on deaf ears. He was already immersed in another conversation.

“Y—T—R—I—H—T.” Staring at his back, Randy pronounced each letter of the number slowly and through clenched teeth. Cool heads be damned, she thought, glancing up at the posters on his wall. If any of those guns had been real, Geoff Dias would have been a dead mercenary.

By the time he hung up, she’d abandoned counting techniques and regressed to thinking murderous thoughts. Only her voice was cool as she spoke. “What do I have to do to get your attention, Mr. Dias?”

“Are you still here?” he said, glancing her way.

“Am I still—” The last word jammed in her throat. Something about his profile stopped her. From that angle he looked suddenly, frighteningly familiar. Was it his jawline? The ridge in his broken nose?

“You never answered me,” she said suddenly, urgently.
“Have we met before?”

He merely smiled, that same infuriatingly sensual flicker of amusement that implied everything and revealed nothing.

As he turned back to the phone. Randy saw red. “Are you going to answer me, dammit?” Without giving a thought to the consequences, she walked over, snatched the phone receiver out of his hand, and slammed it into the cradle. “I’m talking to you, Mr. Dias. And I want an answer!”

His emerald eyes caught fire as he turned to her. Gripping her by the arms, he whipped her around and backed her up against the wall in one swift, heart-stopping movement. Before she could catch her breath, he had her arms raised above her head and pinned to the wall.

“Are you crazy?” she gasped, straining against him.

“Certifiable,” he said. “But at least I’m not rude.”

“Rude?”

“You didn’t say please.”

He kissed her before she could say please or anything else, kissed her with such shocking force and potency that all the air in her body seemed to get trapped in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe for several seconds, and then she forgot all about needing to breathe. The heat of his mouth enveloped her, melting her unwilling lips, stroking and shaping them to his, mastering her responses. She knew that if he had his way, he would ultimately master the rest of her as well.

He was a big man, but it wasn’t just his size that made her feel helpless. The instant his mouth touched hers, she was lost in the kiss. It was hot and heavy and punishing, an act of conquering, as if he was determined to prove something, to force her to acknowledge him. Why? she asked herself frantically. Who was he?

She tried to move, but he pressed her to the wall with his hips, forcing a soft moan out of her. He wanted something more than a stolen kiss, Randy realized with shocking clarity. Even more than the physical act of sex.
He was calling for unconditional surrender.
That awareness swirled through her senses as feverishly as hot steam.

Again she tried to move, and again he reacted swiftly, bringing her arms down, anchoring them alongside her head. He pressed his forearms to hers and held her fast, easily subduing her efforts to escape.

“Temper, temper,” he said, his voice husky with passion. He grazed her mouth lightly with his, but instead of kissing her, he nipped the flesh of her lower lip.

Randy recoiled at the stinging pleasure. Why was he doing this to her? And why was she responding? She wanted to resist. She was trying to resist, damn him! And yet everything he did sent urgent thrills spiraling through her. The feel of his body flush up against hers melted her defenses, making her feel weak and heavy, weighing her down with sensations. The heat of his thighs seemed to flow into hers, and the power of his arms made her dizzy.