Deadly Games Part 12

"Here." He thrust a bouquet of red roses forward.

"Awww!" She accepted the flowers and smiled, then drew in a whoosh of air as Rocco swept her off her feet and into his arms.

She scrambled to hold the towel across her b.o.o.bs and felt his arm brush the bare backs of her upper thighs as the towel lifted.

Two steps had him over the threshold and inside her apartment. Using his foot, Rocco shoved the door shut and leaned back against it, still holding her.

She held the roses in a death grip. "Thank you. For these."

"Does that mean you forgive me?" He pressed another kiss to her lips. "Because if you don't, I have another surprise."

"Wicked man." Gena laughed. How on earth could she stay angry? "In that case, I'm not yet certain if I forgive you. But you need to hurry the next surprise, because if I'm not out of here in ten minutes, I'll be late for work."

He carried her over to the couch. Once again she had to clutch at her towel. As he sat, settling her in his lap, the arm beneath her legs brushed higher still. Teasing. Taunting. When he moved it seconds later, she missed its heat pressed against her.

"About work," he said. "That's my surprise. It's a snow day. You can't possibly go in."

"A snow day?" It was supposed to hit the mid-nineties today, but Gena played along. "And if I don't go to work today, what will I do?"

He picked up her fingers and entwined them with his. "You'll go away for a fabulous weekend with the man of your dreams."

Gena bolted straight up, feigning panic. "Prince Charming is coming? Here? When? Let me up, I need to get dressed!"

He dipped her backward so suddenly she squealed. The roses fell as she grabbed for his neck.

"Easy, I've got you."

"My roses!" Her bouquet had landed near his feet.

Rocco picked them up and set them aside. His gaze was intense now and she felt her pulse hammer. The towel she wore suddenly felt restrictive, too tight.

"G.o.d, I missed you, Gena. Say yes." He kissed her again before she could reply.

All playfulness disappeared. His mouth was demanding, enticing.

The raging desire she'd woken up with returned. How could she deny this man anything? Yes. Yes. Yes. The words echoed with each heartbeat.

This time when he started to pull back, she tightened her embrace, hungry for more. Holding him in place, she deepened the kiss, nervous to be taking the initiative.

His hand curved along her rib cage, drifting up until his knuckles rubbed the curve of her breast through the towel.

"Yes," she encouraged. She was ready to take this to a new level. To know where this path of heat and fire led. There would be no more waiting, no more wondering. No more pulling back.

When they finally broke apart, his breathing was as labored as hers. But he pushed her away.

"You need to get packed," he said. "We've got a plane to catch."

Rocco offered to call Gena's boss and pull strings for a day off. Gena refused and made the call herself-taking a personal day. Nice girls didn't lie, but by the same token, they didn't have to blab everything they knew.

It drove her crazy that Rocco wouldn't tell her anything about where they were going.

"It's a surprise."

"Then how do I pack?" she asked.

"Think snow day. Nothing dressy. And bring your pa.s.sport."

Pa.s.sports meant leaving the country. meant leaving the country. Snow Snow meant cold. The Canadian Rockies, she guessed, seeing as they only had a three-day weekend. meant cold. The Canadian Rockies, she guessed, seeing as they only had a three-day weekend.

Though pulling out sweaters and boots in July seemed absurd, Gena tossed everything she could in a suitcase, barely making the fifteen-minute deadline Rocco had given her.

They took a cab to Reagan airport but bypa.s.sed the main terminal. "A friend is flying a small group," Rocco said.

"A small group" actually turned out to be about fifty pa.s.sengers. Gena grew suspicious as she took in the others' apparel. Straw hats. Island-print shirts.

"Snow?" she whispered as she buckled her seat belt.

"Snow day," Rocco corrected. "Don't you remember as a kid what a blast it was to wake up and find school had been unexpectedly canceled? And you and your friends raced outside to find and follow the snowplows to see where they'd pile the excess?"

"Um, we didn't get snow days in South Texas." And Gena never would have been allowed to follow a plow.

"b.u.mmer." He sounded sincere.

"If we're not going somewhere cold, then I packed all wrong. I might need to go shopping."

Rocco grinned. He picked up her hand and kissed the tops of her knuckles. "I've got everything you need, princess. Trust me."

His thumb rubbed slow circles in the center of her palm. The sensation made Gena hyperaware. Sensitive. There was only one thing she needed needed and it had nothing to do with clothes. and it had nothing to do with clothes.

By the time their plane reached its destination, Grand Cayman, Gena was ready to throw Rocco down on the terminal floor and jump his bones. The two gla.s.ses of wine she'd had on the plane had eased her inhibitions.

Rocco took her to a marina where he had a small speedboat waiting.

More wine, more roses, were arranged inside a small but elegant cabana on a private island.

Gena giggled as she spotted the stretch of gleaming white beach. "The sand does kind of look like snow. Please tell me you brought me a swimsuit."

"If I said no, would you swim without one?" Rocco pressed another gla.s.s of chardonnay into her hand.

She drank deeply, pondering his question. "Depends on who else was around." The wine made her feel bold. Naughty.

"Better not be anyone around but me." Rocco growled as he drew her close. Then he pressed her fully against his body and kissed her.

Gena felt his erection strain beneath the fly of his jeans. She rubbed, thrusted against it, not nearly as wary of his size as she'd been the first time she'd felt his erection. Her hands shifted to tug at his waistband. Wanting more, wanting him ...

"You," she whispered. "I only want you."

Out of nowhere came the memory of his absence the last three weeks. Confusion washed over her.

"What's wrong?" Rocco cupped her chin, made her meet his intense gaze. "You pulled back. Tell me what you're thinking. And feeling."

"I'm scared," she blurted. "I mean ... apprehensive."

"That's understandable. We'll slow it down."

"I don't want slow. I want-"

"Promises?"

The word surprised her. "No. Yes. I mean, maybe. I want a promise of communication. I don't want to wonder if you've disappeared for a few weeks-or for good."

"Do you think you could actually shake me so easily? Here's my promise, princess. We're not going any further with this relationship until we've reached an understanding. I want you to know exactly how I feel about you, so you'll never worry when I'm gone. And I want to know you're home, waiting for me. Only for me Only for me."

Chapter Fourteen.

Brownsville, TX October 4, 8:37 P.M.

Loose gravel churned beneath his tires as Harry pulled away from the Cactus Rose Inn.

In addition to his regular fee, Edguardo had just been paid a bonus to lie low for the next twenty-four hours. Harry wasn't so much concerned about police alerts as he was about keeping Edguardo available in the event he needed help on short notice.

Edguardo had railed about the disastrous day. He'd been p.i.s.sed over having to fend Rocco off alone, losing Gena in the process. "You said you'd handle him while I got the woman!" he'd hollered at Harry.

Yeah, well, that was before some a.s.shole backed into Harry's car, right in front of the freaking hospital, leaving Rocco free to speed off, oblivious to his would-be tail.

The accident had caused little damage to Harry's rental car, but the swapping of his fake driver information had taken long enough to allow Rocco to catch up with Edguardo and Gena.

After fleeing Sugar Springs, Edguardo had bonfired the stolen black truck, a fast way to destroy trace evidence. As it turned out, the cops had nothing but a handful of conflicting accounts about a gun being fired from a truck. No one got a good description of Edguardo and the license plates had come back stolen.

None of the eyewitnesses had even mentioned Rocco's vehicle. And while one person claimed they saw a blond woman in the black truck, there were no reports of a missing person, so the cops hadn't even realized Gena Armstrong had been involved.

Harry still wasn't buying the story that Gena had jumped from a moving vehicle. He knew her too d.a.m.n well. Sober, she was vain with a capital V V. So even if she'd managed to sc.r.a.pe up enough courage to jump, ultimately she'd have worried more about the potential damage to her face and chickened out.

Now had she been drunk ...

Most likely she'd fallen out of the truck. He didn't care what Edguardo said, the door must not have been shut all the way. At least Rocco or another driver hadn't run the b.i.t.c.h over when she'd hit the pavement.

That Rocco now had Gena in his possession wasn't the absolute worst-case scenario, though it wasn't ideal. Harry still had a couple of cards to play.

Finding out where Rocco had stashed Gena was job one. The private plane that had ferried Rocco to Sugar Springs had flown back to D.C. without pa.s.sengers. Harry hoped that meant Rocco had picked a safe house in Texas. The Agency used a lot of third-party contractors for security, which made it easier to circ.u.mvent.

Harry was also waiting to learn where Rocco's sister and her kid were staying. s.n.a.t.c.hing one of them was not Harry's first or second choice, but if he ran out of other options ...

He slowed, turning off the highway. A few minutes later he pulled up beside the Winnebago he'd left parked at an RV station near Brownsville.

Inside, he booted up his laptop while microwav-ing a frozen dinner he'd grabbed at a convenience store. Then he brewed a pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night. By the time Harry had wolfed down the food and poured coffee, his laptop completed its security protocols. A slow process to be sure, but necessary.

He opened a browser and began retrieving e-mail from various sources. There wasn't much.

The Rialto cartel wanted a progress report, which was a subtle way of saying, "Hurry, we're waiting."

"Well, you're just going to have to keep waiting," Harry muttered as he typed a reply that was equally subtle and vague. Wrapping up details now. Hope to have final timeline in 72 hours.

Reading it reminded him of the stakes. d.a.m.n it! He needed to make contact with Rufin.

His cell phone rang with the special ringtone he'd a.s.signed to his CIA mole Ian Brown. The traitor The traitor.

"Have you found them?" Harry asked.

"No. Rocco hasn't called in or contacted any of the Agency resources for a safe house."

"Are you monitoring all his known aliases?"

"Absolutely. But no hits."

"I expected as much," Harry said. Rocco had a knack for keeping a ready supply of secret IDs. "I take it you've had nothing on Gena's IDs then, either."

"I even tapped her health insurance records, but either she wasn't hurt badly enough to need medical attention or she's using an alias, too."

"What about Rufin? Any headway in tracking his location?"

"None. Though an opportunity might open if they catch this Taz character. Max Duncan's fiancee, Dr. Houston, seems confident that Max is closing in on Taz. If Rufin is truly the only one who can retrieve those data chips, then perhaps we need to follow Taz once he's in custody."

"Maybe I should join the hunt for Taz," Harry said, only half joking. "We need to watch Dr. Houston more closely as well."

Ian cleared his throat. "If we could manage to get the research on those chips, would we even need Dr. Rufin? Abe Caldwell seemed certain someone on his staff could replicate the Serum 89 formula from the research notes."

It bothered Harry that Ian knew so much about Serum 89, a mind-control drug the late Dr. Viktor Zadovsky had invented.

Had Abe Caldwell really confided in Ian to that degree? Or did Ian have access to more data than he let on? True traitors always looked out for themselves first. All the more reason to debrief and unplug Ian as soon as possible.

"Abe Caldwell overestimated his researchers," Harry said. "There's only one scientist I know of who could replicate the Serum 89 formula. A man who worked with Viktor Zadovsky in Belarus."

Harry was bluffing. He d.a.m.n sure wasn't going to tell Ian the truth, that even Dr. Rufin had expressed doubt in anyone's ability to replicate Serum 89. Still, getting the data from those chips might be all Harry required to manufacture SugarCane.

"Would this person in Belarus be open to a partnership?" Ian was obviously interested.

Harry set the hook. "I'd approach it from a work-for-hire angle. The fewer people to split profits with, the better."

"Let me see what other sources I can tap to trace Taz."