Wild Encounter (24 page)

“Let’s move on to the escape, shall we?” McKenzie said, glancing at Clare’s signed statement from the year before. “Your first attempt was a cover. To get to your medical bag which had animal sedatives in it?”

“Correct.”

“Your signed statement claims your door was accidentally left unlocked so you were able to get out and sedate two of the men, then steal a vehicle and escape. Do you recall making that claim?”

Clare blushed again. She’d lied to the faces of the Republic Police. And the SIS interpreter. “Yes.”

“Mr. deVries relates those circumstances quite differently. Was there anything you wanted to add to, or change in your previous statement?”

Don’t make me say it out loud.

She took a breath. “All right.”

McKenzie continued to look at her steadily; Radcliffe readied his pen for notes.

“Simon and I, that is, Mr. deVries and I were left alone in the house that day. The others had driven off somewhere. I knew it would be my only chance. It wouldn’t happen again. But I needed the bakkie. To get to Lusaka. I had to wait until one of them returned with the vehicle.”

“Go on.”

“So, Simon and I spent all afternoon together, and we were talking and…one thing led to another…” McKenzie stared at her, wanting more. “You can’t possibly want details?”

“You could have drugged him while you were having sex,” McKenzie offered helpfully. “Or before. While he was…vulnerable. Why didn’t you? Why wait until afterward, until he was asleep?”

“I…um, it never occurred to me.”

“You seduced him purely to get him in a vulnerable position. Right? Why go through with it if you didn’t have to?”

Clare paused for a long time before answering. “I could have used the drugs at any time. Taken him by surprise. I didn’t need him asleep.”

“Then why did you have sex with him?”

“Because I wanted to.” Her voice rose along with her pulse. “Because I felt closer to him in those moments than to anyone else in my whole life. And because he looked at me like I was his entire world.” She’d be shouting, now, if her throat weren’t so tight. “He and I had been locked up together for days with all this incredible chemistry bubbling away between us, and then suddenly we were alone and…the feelings just boiled over. I never planned that. It just happened.”

McKenzie’s voice was infuriatingly calm. “Do you need a moment, Ms. Delaney?”

“No. I don’t!” Clare snapped. She was tired of this line of questioning. “Do you have any questions not relating to what Mr. deVries and I did in the privacy of that room?”

“Quite a few. This is a matter of international security, Ms. Delaney, so there is no such thing as privacy.”

In the mirror, the red light lit up again. McKenzie paid no attention.

“Uh, McKenzie…?” Radcliffe glanced between her and the red light.

“Thank you. I am well aware, but
I’m ignoring it
.” The last words were said loudly to the room in general. Clare straightened in her chair. Radcliffe snapped his mouth shut. The light blazed a few seconds longer before going out.

McKenzie smiled and continued. “So you woke up in an unlocked house and took your chance to escape?”

“Yes. One of the men had returned with the bakkie.”

“So you drugged him and Mr. deVries, and took the vehicle.”

“Yes.” Clare’s voice was tiny.

“I’m sorry?”

“Yes! I drugged both of them.”

McKenzie put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Despite having just had sex with the man? Seems a little cold, doesn’t it?”

Clare’s chair kicked over as she jumped to her feet. Radcliffe’s hand went to his side-arm. “I’m well aware of that. He’d just informed me he had no plan to get me out, that I was supposed to be dead by morning.” Clare smacked her palms on the table and leaned over. “What would
you
have done?”

McKenzie remained imperturbably calm, and silent.

“Every day since, I’ve wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t done it. If I hadn’t drugged him, just run off with the keys. Or taken him with me. Or anything other than what I did. Until I saw him again in Zambia last month, I didn’t even know if he was alive. That maybe I’d killed him.”

She swiped angrily at the tears streaming down her face. “I’ve been so afraid of what people would say if they knew. Of exactly the judgment I see in your eyes. Of seeing it in the eyes of my friends and colleagues. So, no. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it. I’ve just held onto it. For seven hellish months. I’m tired, really tired of wondering, and fearing, and hating myself for making an impossible choice.

“So go ahead and paint me as a whore and a bitch in your report. I know the truth. I slept with him because I was halfway in love with him, and I drugged him because I really wanted to live. I don’t think either of those things is so terrible.”

Clare dropped back down in her seat, her head in her hands. Such a massive amount of weight had just left her sagging shoulders. She had forgotten how it felt not to carry it around.

“Would you like that moment, now, Ms. Delaney?” McKenzie asked, gently sliding a glass of water her way.

“No. Let’s get this finished.” Clare’s hands shook. But her voice was strong.

McKenzie took a deep breath and continued.

The questions went on for fifteen minutes. Cross checking stated facts, getting corroborating evidence, double-checking timelines. Then, finally, it was over.

“I think we have what we need. I’m satisfied with what I’ve heard,” McKenzie said, rising and turning to look steadily in the mirror as she ended the interview for the recording.

Clare stood up. “May I go?”

“Of course. Thank you for coming in.”

You’re not welcome.
“No problem.” She checked her face in the mirrored wall and decided she wasn’t too ravaged by her tears, but her eyes were still enormous and red-rimmed.

McKenzie let Radcliff exit the room first. He nodded awkwardly to Clare then hurried out the door.

“Rookie,” McKenzie said shaking her head.

“At least he didn’t run,” Clare said with a wan smile.

McKenzie smiled back—hell must have frozen over—and led her out of the interview room. Clare started back down the corridor the way they’d come in earlier. McKenzie stopped her at the door to the next room.

“Clare, could you please wait here a moment?” she asked, glancing up and down the empty hall. She knocked on the door and then marched off without a backward glance. Clare frowned, and was about to follow her when she felt the door opening behind her.

She turned and gasped as two strong hands yanked her into the room.

Chapter Seventeen

Simon shut the door behind Clare, plunging them into darkness.

“Simon? Is that—”

“Shut up,” he ordered, twisting Clare around to face him.

“What’s going—”

“Shut up!” He slid his hands up her arms, yanking her close.

His heart was still beating double-time. He was going to kill Mac. She had gone thoroughly off-script in her inquisition. But Clare had rounded as savagely as one of her wild dogs defending itself against a predator.

And then it had happened.

Clare’s control had snapped. And like the thousands of liters per second that tumble over Victoria Falls, all her rage and pain poured out—six months of repressed hurt and fear crashing onto his speechless partner.

He was a lousy friend. Because he’d never felt such pride and admiration. This woman—
his
woman—gave as good as she got.

“Simon?” she asked breathlessly.

“Shut up!” he murmured, wrapping her in his arms.

Then his mouth was on hers, crushing her to him, trying to fuse their bodies permanently together. His muscles barely had to work to keep her tight within the circle of his arms. She melted into his python hold, opening her mouth wider to let him fully in. His tongue stole past her teeth, tangling with her own, invading and retreating, desperate to taste her. She tugged on his lips with her own, clinging as though her life depended on it.

His hands moved down to splay across her midriff and under her breasts, the
thump
-
thump-thump
of her heart pounding against his palm.

He lifted his head just a fraction. “You love me,” he told her.

She blinked at him, disoriented. But he knew what he’d heard, and Mac had heard it too. That idiot, Radcliff, had probably even written it in his notes. He’d seen the subtle shift in his partner’s posture that marked her success. The big-arsed dose of smugness she shot at him through the one-way mirror.

That was what she’d been pushing Clare to say. She knew him well enough to know he had to hear it to believe it, spelled out in black and white. For better or worse.

But in this case, definitely, categorically better.

“I heard you say it.” He gazed down at her, his heart filling with warmth. “You love me.”

Clare blinked and glanced around, spotted the interview room on the other side of the glass. She sucked in an accusing breath.

“Don’t be angry. If I hadn’t listened, I wouldn’t know how you really feel.” He dipped his head and kissed her neck. “Other than wonderful,” he murmured.

“I said I
half
-love you…” She tried to huff. He kept kissing her neck, giving it tiny nips. The huff turned into a whimper.

He hummed against her throat. “Got a particular half in mind?”

She shoved at his chest but he wasn’t going anywhere. Defiance blazing in her eyes. So different than the open, vulnerable windows to her soul as she’d checked her makeup in the mirror. The precious seconds he’d had to let himself drown in those deep brown pools.

“The half that doesn’t smirk.”

He smiled down at her. “I’m not smirking, beautiful. I’m happy.” He slid his hand up her back to cradle the back of her head and then brought his mouth down to hers again. “So damn happy.”

He kissed her long and hard.

And exquisitely slow.

Somewhere in the middle of that kiss her luscious body changed. She melted into him. Surrendered to him. She shivered with the pleasure of their tasting and their touching. She pushed against him as he covered her face and throat with more kisses. And more.

But then she broke the kisses, pulled away a little. “Simon. Wait.”

She looked up at him with smoky eyes. Stunning, especially when they were dark with desire. But there was hesitation in them.

“Clare, if you’re going to tell me you don’t love me, I’ll—”

“No. I…I have no idea how
you
feel,” she said, the battle between fear and trust playing out so clearly on her face.

Once, during emergency egress training half-a-kilometer deep in the sea, his ribs had crumpled in on his thorax like a vacuum. By the time he broke surface his entire chest was in agony. That was nothing on this moment.

He’d never even allowed the thought, let alone said the words out loud. Protecting and worshipping came naturally to him, but risking his heart? Letting out his emotions?

Admitting to love
?

Never.

He stroked the stray hairs back from her tear-stained face. “You said it yourself, Clare. You
are
my world; and my world has been cold and empty since Africa.”

She took a cautious breath. “For three weeks?”

He shook his head. “Seven months. Since the first time you left me.”

Her eyes widened. “But…”

He pulled a tall, padded stool over and lifted her onto it, kissing her face and throat. “But?”

“How can we trust these feelings?” Her protest weakened the more his hands roamed her body. The more his lips caressed her skin. “We barely know each other.”

He thumbed the feminine buttons on her angora cardigan. The way her breasts strained against the fabric, they hardly needed his help to freedom. Just as she hadn’t…

“I know plenty. I know you’re brave…” A button popped. “And funny.”
Pop.
“And smart.”
Pop.
The final button slid free, and he pushed the soft fabric aside, feasting his eyes on the full, creamy mounds of flesh. He remembered those breasts. In exquisite detail. He’d dreamed of those breasts. Often. “And possibly the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on,” he said huskily.

He strained thickly against his trousers, hungering for her. But he forced himself to slow, bending to lick across the lacy edge of her bra.

“And you know I’m stubborn.”
Lick
. “And crafty.”
Lick
. He paused to mark the moment his life was going to change forever.

“And completely, madly in love with you.”

…

Simon’s teeth scraped over Clare’s rock-hard nipple through the lacy fabric.

She threw back her head at the sharp, hot sensation, and moaned in pleasure at the flood of emotions tumbling through her.

He loved her! Simon loved her!

An hour ago she’d believed she’d lost him forever, and now she was here with him, half-naked, practically making love, within the vaunted walls of Vauxhall.

Delirium set in.

In a good way.

He undid her bra with no effort.

“Someone will see…” Her protest wasn’t terribly convincing.

“One way glass. Triple glazed.”

“The door?” Turning her head to look only gave him easier access to the side of her throat.

“Locked from the inside.” He nipped the tender flesh below her ear. She gasped, going shivery all over. She loved that spot.

“Can they hear us?” She reached for his belt, almost beyond caring.

“Soundproof.”

“Oh, thank God.” Her fingers fumbled at his belt buckle and reached for the fly of his trousers. Scooting forward on the stool she hooked her legs around his thighs, her soft cotton skirt bunching up around her hips.

“If you’re not ready for me in thirty seconds I’m starting without you,” he said. “It’s been seven long months of hell, Clare.”

The idea of a man like Simon remaining celibate that long was hard to imagine. For it to happen because of his feelings for her was such a turn-on. “I was ready thirty seconds ago,” she purred, throaty with lust.

His trousers fell to the floor, his hand tugged her underwear aside and then—wonderfully, finally, and forever—he was inside her. He drew her bottom hard toward him, locking them together.

He found her hungry mouth with his and Clare squeezed her knees around him to hold him closer as he thrust more deeply. She locked her hand around her own wrist behind his neck and joined his rhythm, clasping inner and outer muscles in sync.

It wasn’t romantic, there were no sweet nothings. It was fast and dirty, and exactly, perfectly, wonderfully right.

Her body wept, and she cried out, exultant to end the long absence of him inside her.

She matched him, thrust for ever-faster-ever-deeper thrust, her body trembling all over with her need for him.

“Now,” he rasped. “Come for me now.”

She wrapped her arms around his shuddering shoulders and felt the first powerful spasms.

“Yes!”

He crushed her to him, and thrust hard into her, muting his strangled cry against her throat. She fell with him over the edge, into the blinding light of orgasm, and the rhythmic pulse of his muscles, his essence, flooded into her, made all the more powerful, and all the more holy, by her own utterly silent scream.

…

Clare lay half bent back over the stool, still locked together with Simon, shudders rapidly giving way to gentle spasms of laughter.

“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Sweet heaven.”

“That was—” he gulped down a breath, choking on a chuckle “—insanely good.”

She could just make out their reflections in the broad glass of the one-way window behind Simon and it was an entirely undignified picture. She, topless with her skirt bunched up at her waist, and he with the top half of his designer suit entirely untouched but his trousers pooled around his shiny shoes. Her legs were still hooked around his hips, and the hard curve of one very male buttock flashed out below his jacket hem.

She hoped to heaven any surveillance equipment was on the
other
side of this observation window.

He grinned and sighed. “I’ll probably get fired for this.”

She giggled. “It was totally worth it.”

He supported her weight as she lowered her legs, tipping her carefully into an upright position. He lowered his head for another lingering kiss. “Oh, yeah.”

She met his mouth as she pulled her underwear back into place and smoothed her skirt down.

“Next time we do this,” he pledged, refastening his suit pants, “it’ll be in one of our own beds. And we’ll stay there all day.”

Clare smiled up at him. “What makes you think there’ll be a next time?”

His laughter faded to seriousness. “Oh there will be. A hundred thousand next times. I never want to go a day without you again.”

She blinked at the stark promise in his eyes, the intensity of his expression. “Me, neither,” she whispered.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

It wasn’t anger in his eyes. Or hurt. She perched her feet on the stool base and fixed her bra and sweater. Buying time. She knew exactly what he was asking about.

“You seemed so concerned about breaching your professional code of conduct,” she confessed. “So filled with remorse. I wasn’t about to admit I’d cherished every moment.”

Simon swallowed. “It killed me to think you’d slept with me just to escape. Or that I’d taken advantage of you when you were vulnerable.” He stroked her hair. “And then you looked at me in the hunting blind last month, and I knew it was still there…what we’d had. But everyone had rammed the whole Stockholm thing into my head.”

Clare furrowed her brow. “Dr. Douglass had me doubting myself, too. It felt so real. But you were one of
them…
”

Two tiny lines formed between his brows. He nodded. “So, how could it be real?”

She pressed her hands on both sides of his handsome face. “Yes. I can’t tell you how incredible it felt to see you again. Alive. Healthy.”

“You mean when you ran away screaming into the bush?” he reminded her on a half-smile.

“My body ran. That screaming was my heart howling with joy.” She slipped her arms around his waist as he wrapped his around her. Their body heat fused them together. “I’d learned not to trust my heart, by then.”

His brow creased. “Always trust your heart. It is as pure and wise as any I’ve ever met.”

“I got it so wrong once before. Then falling for you in the farmhouse. It felt so right, but had to be so wrong again. I began to feel like my own worst enemy.”

“And then I led you straight into danger.”

“That hit me hard. But I thought about what you said—about operating on a different set of rules than everyone else. And about you being the target, not me. I was so self-centered, thinking only of myself, and the danger to me. Never thinking about the enormous risks you took, routinely, every day, to protect people like me from the bad guys of the world.”

“No, I was the selfish one. It’s my job to risk my life. That’s my choice. You were never given a choice. I was hurting because I wanted you so badly, and knew I could never have you.”

“Oh, Simon. I felt the same way. I just didn’t know how to change things. You kept apologizing for making love with me.”