The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (58 page)

Clowns teetered by on towering stilts, nearly naked women quivered blissfully to the music, and conga lines of revelers danced in the streets, whirling dervishes of primal energy and sensuality. It was Carnaval, Randy realized. There was no escaping the madness!

Someone jostled her from behind, and she stumbled forward toward the street. Before she could catch her balance, a grinning Dracula caught hold of her hand and dragged her with him into a conga line. She was swept along with the crowd, sucked deeper and deeper into the frenzied crush.

Costumed bodies slammed into her, anonymous hands groped her, and the musk of overheated human flesh assailed her senses. A heel snapped off her shoe and one of her shoulder straps tore free of its moorings. She clutched the bodice of her dress as she fought to stay on her feet. It was raw fear that kept her going. The only rule was survival—move with the teeming masses or be trampled by them.

“Randy!”

She heard Geoff’s voice through the din, but she couldn’t see him. As the parade swung around a corner, the pack that surrounded her became even more compressed. For several seconds, she was lifted off the ground as the press of bodies threatened to crush the wind out of her. “Geoff!” she screamed in terror.

Another shift in the parade’s direction dropped her to the ground like a rock. Her feet collided with the pavement and she pitched forward, landing on one knee. Pain jolted through her as revelers swarmed around her, knocking her off balance again and again.

“Randy! Here!”

She heard Geoff calling to her and as she fought to get up, then strong hands lifted her free of the melee. A moment later he was pulling her with him into the safety of a narrow alleyway, drawing her into a recessed doorway.

She’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. Sobbing with relief, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his hair. He held her protectively, cradling her head in the curve of his throat. “Randy, Randy,” he crooned harshly, “don’t ever do anything crazy like that again. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

For once Randy hadn’t the slightest inclination to argue with him. It felt too good being safe in his arms. It felt like heaven after the nightmare of purgatory. And that was all she wanted for now, just the solace of being held and stroked and loved until she could stop shaking.

Loved? she thought ... loved? Was that what she wanted?

Yes, just for now.

He seemed to understand her need. The sheltering strength of his arms conveyed that he had no intention of letting her go until she was ready. If she wanted to be held until the sun ceased to shine, he’d be there.

For Randy it was a new experience. She’d never let herself receive comfort from a man before, simply taking what was offered. She’d always thought women had to barter with men, as her mother had: An act of sex equaled some affection; tears were good for an apology; a hint of contrition, maybe even dinner. It was all coercion, giving to get. But this kindness felt blissfully undeserved. She’d given Geoff Dias nothing but grief so far.

It took her some time, but finally she was able to separate herself from the muscled warmth of his body long enough to glance up at him. “I think I’m going to live,” she told him.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He continued to smooth her hair as if that were his sole purpose in life. “Why did you run away?”

“I had to.” She was surprised he didn’t understand. “That floor show! And you, the Prince of Darkness himself, leering at me like I was some kind of virgin sacrifice—or a peach ripening to be plucked.”

His expression was one of droll self-restraint. “You have quite an imagination, lady.”

“Don’t lie. You weren’t thinking about plucking me?”

“I think about that a lot, but I’d rather do it privately, just the two of us. Say ... back at the hotel? It’s short notice for a virgin sacrifice, but I’ll see what I can do. Of course, we’ll need a virgin.”

“Cheeky bastard,” she said, laughter bubbling in her reproach. Still suspicious of his sexy grin, she leaned back, letting herself be supported by the circle of his arms. “You had no ulterior motives in mind taking me to the club?”

“Randy,
you
insisted on going.” He lifted the dangling rhinestone strap of her dress, drawing the bodice up to cover the creamy fullness of one nearly exposed breast. “If I had ulterior motives, would I be doing this?”

He’d picked the wrong area of her body to be gallant about, especially considering the liberties he’d taken earlier—and in his office. “Don’t play games with me, Geoff Dias,” she warned, surprised at the emotion in her voice. “I’m not an easy mark, whatever evidence you may think you have to the contrary. I won’t be trifled with like all those other women you’ve conquered—the ‘babies’ on your bike.”

She pressed her hands to his biceps and pushed, making a halfhearted attempt to extricate herself. He countered by slipping his fingers into her hair, by stroking the tautness below her cheekbone with his thumb. Finally, reluctantly, she met his eyes and felt her pulse rate soar.

“I’m not trifling,” he insisted quietly. “If I wanted to trifle, I could have had that crazed woman back at Cheiro de Amor. And the ‘baby’ on my bike is singular, just one woman.”

His voice dropped low, but there was something passionate in its tone, something male and possessive. “It’s you ... Randy. Baby, it’s you.”

Randy was more than astonished, she was fearful. He’d sounded as if he meant it. But surely that was impossible. Men like Geoff Dias didn’t squander themselves on just one female, not with so much testosterone to spread around, not with so many worlds to conquer, so many women. “What are you saying?” she demanded, covering her alarm with questions. “What do you mean, it’s me?”

He shook his head, as if a little confused himself. “I don’t know, maybe I want to give this thing a chance.

See what happens—if anything
can
happen between us.”

Randy was shaken by the way her blood was rushing and her mind was racing. She didn’t want to hear what he was saying to her, and yet she didn’t want him to stop.
Give this thing a chance
? God, how that idea frightened her. It was impossible.

“No, I can’t take chances, Geoff,” she told him. “I need something solid. I
have
something solid.”

He tipped up her chin and stared at her hard. “Right, you’ve got a solid guy who hangs out at places called The Smell of Love?”

“Oh—and you don’t hang out at places like that?”

“Sure I do, but I admit to it, Randy. I’m not pretending to be Mr. Clean. I’m not lying to you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked him. “That Hugh
is
lying to me? About what?” She could hardly believe it. Geoff Dias was setting himself up as morally superior to her fiancé? The man who rode bikes like a banshee and carried a flask in his hip pocket? Hugh was a fine man, a conscientious man who’d worked his whole life to get where he was.

“There are plenty of things your fiancé could be lying about,” Geoff pointed out. “Like what he was doing at that nightclub, why he met with Santeras.”

She met his emerald gaze head on. “Are you asking me to believe that Hugh was doing something wrong, something illegal?”

“I’m not asking you to believe anything about Hugh. I’m telling you something about me. I’ve never lied to you, and I never will. Maybe you’re not used to that in a man.”

Randy had a moment of true confusion. His thumb was still stroking her face lightly, and the conviction in his voice pulled at her. It reached into her mind and made her want to question the things she’d taken for granted as true. He seemed to be saying he wanted a relationship with her. But maybe he was just playing with her head, her hopes, trying to convince her that he was a man who didn’t lie, a man who would hold her simply because she needed holding. But why would he do all that? What was his motive? Surely he had one. All men did.

He bent to kiss her and she whispered something as his mouth neared hers. “Is the deal off, then? The night of sex?”

“No, sweetness,” he said, tasting her lips, sipping, sampling, tantalizing, “the deal isn’t off. You’re not going to leave Hugh for me. You’re too frightened. And if I can’t have anything else, then I want that night. I
mean to have that night
.”

His lips continued to touch hers, light, sexy, wickedly sweet. His hand went to the breast he’d covered, and she felt a shock wave of desire as his skin touched her bare flesh. He was right. Everything he said was true. She wasn’t going to leave Hugh, she couldn’t. It would kill her to give up her dreams.

But there was one thing Geoff Dias didn’t know, must never know. She wanted that night of sex with him. She wanted it badly.

G
EOFF, WEARING ONLY
his tuxedo pants, stood alone in the darkness of his bedroom gazing out the open terrace doors. The low vibrant music of the grandfather clock echoed from the foyer, followed by four lonely chimes. The sound was haunting. Even the chaos of Carnaval, roiling up on sultry waves of heat, couldn’t offset the sad beauty of the chimes.

They reminded him of her.

He’d been sketching her in his mind again, the gypsy bride in her lacy white wedding gown and her shattered dreams. It was the same image, always the same, her eyelashes quivering with tears, her features suffused with a young girl’s pain, a young woman’s stung pride.

Why did he always think of her that way? There were a million other images that could have obsessed him—their white-hot coupling on the bike, their abandoned sex in the roadside motel he’d found. She’d been crazy enough to try everything that night, perhaps a little too desperate. At one point she’d thrown herself against the wall, facing away from him, begging him to take her that way. And then in the heat of it, before either of them were finished, she’d freed herself and knelt before him, bringing him to the most explosive climax he’d ever had.

His gut knotted up violently with the memory. Aware of the heat pooling in his groin, he went to the dresser and poured himself a splash of brandy from a crystal decanter. That session had sure as hell left an impression on him. Why couldn’t he draw it? Why did he keep re-creating a sad and beautiful child-woman, full of melancholy, shadowed with yearnings?

Why couldn’t he get her out of his system?

He walked out onto the terrace, drink in hand, barely aware of the sweltering heat. There was an aching sensation between his ribs that intensified whenever he took a breath. It was associated with her, he knew, and it would only get worse. She was slowly but surely driving him nuts. She could have been crushed in that mob scene, and the thought of losing her that way had churned up feelings. It had made him realize that he cared about her, maybe even enough to think about the consequences of hurting her.

He took a quick slug of the brandy and grimaced as it set fire to the roof of his mouth. If he were a better man, he’d find her Prince Charming for her and get out of her life. There was no way to get the satisfaction he wanted from her short of destroying her dream. If she wanted a loveless marriage to a buttoned-down desk jockey—permanence over passion—that was her choice.

He glanced down at her balcony and saw that the doors to her room were open. Something tugged deep inside him, tempting him to think of it as an invitation. Hell, she’d invited him in the club, surrendering her mouth to him, her breast, then pulling back abruptly when they were interrupted. He wanted to believe that if they’d been somewhere else, with nothing to stop them, she would have surrendered it all.

He drained the rest of the brandy in his glass, fighting fire with fire, trying to put out the blaze in his gut. If he were a better man, he wouldn’t even be thinking about such things. If he were a better man ...

Where had he gone?
Randy crumpled the note she’d found on her pillow that morning and tossed it into the basin of a green marble birdbath that stood in the midst of the terrace garden. With a sigh of frustration, she picked up her dripping glass of iced tea and took a drink, ignoring the fruit salad that sat on the table next to her.

Geoff had already gone out when she’d awakened at eight
A.M
., and his terse message said he’d left to investigate a new lead. It gave no specifics, not even an estimate of the time he’d be back. She glanced at her watch, then chided herself because she’d checked it just moments before.

It was well past noon now, and she was becoming increasingly uneasy—not only about what he was doing, but about what they’d done the night before. She’d had wild dreams the entire night, all of them dominated by an emerald-eyed devil in a black mask. She’d awakened in turmoil, determined to talk to him about their “problem”—and found him gone.

Aware of the dull throb above her eye, which always signaled the beginning of a headache, she rose and walked to the railing. She’d called room service twice for aspirin, but no one had ever shown up. It seemed a miracle they’d brought lunch, considering the chaos that had taken hold of the city.

A cluster of vermilion butterflies swooped overhead and doubled back, alighting on the crimson bougainvillea that grew along the railing. Randy was struck by the natural beauty of Rio as she gazed out at the seascape, at Sugarloaf Mountain and the white puff clouds drifting above. On impulse she decided to take a walk. The exercise would relax her. and she might find a pharmacy in one of the shops nearby where she could get some aspirin.

A short time later she was traversing a shady side street, picking her way through streamers, confetti, and the other paraphernalia of last night’s celebration. In the near distance she could hear the roar of the official parades, where samba schools from all over Brazil were competing for the enormous prestige of taking first place in the dance competition.

Making a mental note of her surroundings so she could find her way back, she took a street heading in the opposite direction from the parades. She wanted to avoid the crowds.

Most of the shops were closed, but she was hoping to come across a grocery or drugstore. She covered a few blocks, took another corner and heard the soft purr of a car engine. Glancing behind her, she noticed a sleek black limo as it gingerly negotiated the turn and crept into a parking spot.