Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) Page 20

  On the plus side, the mess had brought him Vanessa. She poured her sunshine into his heart so the heavy darkness within him had begun to lift. She nudged him to reorder his priorities and take a hard look at what passed for his life. He needed her wit and intelligence and kindness. Without her, the old darkness might smother him.

  A sound from the shower pulled him from his reverie. She was … singing? A rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” that redefined off-key. Her laugh and her speaking voice were low and sexy. Her singing grated like chalk on a board.

  Grinning, he padded naked into the bathroom and opened the shower door.

  A cloud of sultry heat laden with the perfume of her shampoo inundated his senses. She stood with her head back to rinse her hair. The mere sight of her excited him and expanded his soul.

  Her closed eyes allowed him to drink in the view unobserved. Her raised arms lifted her full breasts, flushed pink from the hot water. He could lick the cascading water from her budded nipples. Suds oozed down her torso, clinging to the gentle swell of her hips. A fireball of heat roared through his blood and hardened him instantly.

  “‘Oh, it’s one, two—’”

  “Do you have a wounded chicken in here?”

  She squeaked to a stop on “three strikes” when he stepped inside. Sputtering, she splashed shampoo suds at him. “You weren’t supposed to hear me.”

  Laughing, he stepped into the spray and slicked up against her velvety body. “Then you shouldn’t sing so loud. Surveillance probably picked it up on the outdoor mics.”

  “The birds must have their heads tucked under their wings in protest.” She pushed the soap dispenser and smoothed soapy hands over his chest. Rising on tiptoes, she kissed his chin.

  He bent to kiss her breasts, suckling the nipples until she gasped. “What other deep, dark secrets are you keeping from me?”

  He pushed his arousal between her legs. Shuddering with pleasure, she squeezed her thighs together, and the pressure of her toned muscles veered the rest of his blood south. He was on fire. If he didn’t get inside her soon, he’d explode.

  Sighing, she closed her eyes and twisted into the spray. “I’ve told you my personal secrets. My life is an open book.”

  He couldn’t resist running his tongue along the arch of her graceful neck. “A few bad dates. A voice best kept under deep cover. Not very daring or professional for a hotshot government officer.”

  A playful smile curved her mouth, and devilment gleamed in her eyes. One hand closed around him. “How’s this for daring? And it’s definitely unprofessional.”

  Raw hunger pulsed through his veins, and he sucked in a ragged breath. “Unprofessional? I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. But later. Put your arms around my neck.”

  Desperation roaring in his ears, he glided his hands slowly over the swells of her breasts, down the flare of her hips. She writhed in delight, and as his fingers found her moist folds, she shuddered and arched against his hand. Satisfied she was slick and ready for him, he sheathed himself with the protection he’d just stashed on the soap dish. He lifted her against the tiled wall, and she twined her legs around him.

  “Now, Nick!”

  Chapter 20

  A WILD LITTLE moan parted her lips. She clutched at his arms as he wedged himself into her tight little body.

  He pushed in, slow and deep, groaning at the power of her grip on him. She was so small, he was never sure they’d quite fit, but the fit was perfect. No woman had ever fitted him so well, read him so well, loved him so well.

  Arching in his arms, she took him into the heat of her being.

  His whole body tingled with pleasure that was almost painful. He gritted his teeth to make it last for her.

  Together they found the rhythm that made her ripple against him. Together they fused into one as passion burned away the rest of the world. Together they slid and stroked and surged until she shimmered around him and heat tore from his body.

  ***

  Later when they lay in bed, Vanessa’s body still sang. Her previous experiences with sex had never brought her such depths and heights. Their illusory affair would end tomorrow or in a few days, but she’d never regret her one-sided love for Nick.

  “About tomorrow.” She wanted nothing left to chance. “Did Byrne go over all the details with you?”

  He lay propped up on one elbow beside her. “As much as he cared to. The man doesn’t trust me with the laptop case of money, even though the real dough is mine. That’s locked up next door.”

  “So you’re ready.”

  “As ready as I can be. I still think there’s something about the place and time we’re missing. I wish I knew.”

  The muscles in his face looked tense and hard, a man ready for action. The furrows of worry in his brow meant he’d stay cautious. A safe attitude. She prayed for his safety.

  “Byrne said they chose the time when visitors would be leaving the cemetery, and dusk would confuse things,” she said. “Our people will blend in the crowd.”

  “Their people too.”

  She moved her lips into what she intended as a cheerful smile, but the corners drooped. “Tomorrow this entire operation might end.”

  He placed a palm against her cheek. “I don’t want us to end with it.”

  Her heart hummed, but her conscience poked her with bitter reality. “But, Nick—”

  His expression softening, he pressed a long finger against her lips. “If you’re going to bring up the unprofessional issue, forget it. After tomorrow, our being together for real will be no issue.”

  She scooted to a sitting position. “We haven’t been together for real. This is all an illusion. You don’t really know me. You know the role I’ve been playing in designer clothes and at posh restaurants and parties.”

  He shook his head. “I also know the ‘Confessor’ who sweet-talked a greedy traitor out of his incriminating secrets. And the tough-minded government officer who faced down an angry superior to argue her case. I know the sexy naked woman who made love with me in the shower. Don’t tell me that’s not real.”

  “We have so little in common. I’m a New York cop’s daughter, and you’re a CEO.”

  “Who grew up on the docks, no stranger to city cops.”

  “I’m not your type. Truly, I’m nothing like my sister or Danielle.”

  “Danielle’s defection, if you remember, was more of a deal gone sour than a broken heart. I counted myself lucky. And it’s your fault I stopped seeing Diana.”

  “My fault? I knew it. The paint—”

  “Not the paint, honey. You were so damned cute in your painter’s hat, your hair tied in a ponytail, all pink in the cheeks while you were defending your sister, I knew then it wasn’t Diana I wanted. It was you. I tried to phone you a few days later, but your mom said you’d left the city.”

  She stared at him, her mouth slack. She left the city, as he said, to return to her post in Baltimore. Her mind and her heart groped at his words, and her stomach lurched at the possibility that she was wrong all along. But this major shift in belief wouldn’t wrap around her mind.

  “I know,” he continued, “you aren’t sure if you can trust me. God knows I don’t trust myself. I told myself not to trust you, an undercover operative, experienced in deception. Other women have wanted me for my position, money, influence. Not you. When you defended my actions to Byrne, my doubts fell away.”

  She ought to say, “I am an undercover operative. You shouldn’t trust me,” but the words stuck in her throat. A tight, slick ball of omissions, lies and dissembling sat heavily in her stomach.

  “I’ve thrown a lot at you.” He clicked off the bedside lamp and tucked her close beside him. “Sleep on it, and we’ll work things out together. After tomorrow.”

  She lay in the curve of his arms, her back sheltered against his front. The ache of looming loss constricted her chest. She wanted to believe he wouldn’t hate her w
hen he learned she’d been spying on him. With all her heart, she wanted to believe he truly cared for her.

  Cared, lusted for, even liked, but not the other L word.

  She wasn’t the sophisticated partner a worldly man like Nick needed. The mission had thrown them together. She’d tried to prove she could stay detached undercover, but instead had fallen into a bottomless trap of involvement. Her loss of objectivity could’ve risked the mission because of her foolish, soft heart.

  Softie or not, she had her orders.

  As close as she was to him, she could feel his regular heartbeat and even breathing. He was asleep. For the past few nights, the nightmare hadn’t tormented him. She counted on his sleeping as deeply and peacefully tonight.

  I told myself not to trust you.

  Tears burned again, and she swiped them away. He’d been right not to trust her. Tomorrow after the meeting with Husam Al-Din or his agent, she’d confess to him her spying on him.

  Then he’d hate her. He’d never want to see her again.

  Pain skewered her as she slid out of the silk sheets.

  ***

  Nick awoke to find Vanessa gone from his bed. When he didn’t hear her in the bathroom or see a light, the skin on his nape prickled. Where the hell was she? Leaving in the middle of the night wasn’t like her. Perhaps she was thirsty and went downstairs for a drink.

  Or perhaps the terrorists had set up tomorrow as a decoy and came back to the house for her. Or the money. Or both. Alarms buzzed in his head and skittered down his spine. He had no pistol, no knife. Only his wits and rusty combat skills.

  The security monitor blinked green at him. He pushed buttons. Everything seemed in order. The system was working. No intruders.

  What the hell?

  He rolled out of bed and into sweatpants and sneakers. He made quick work of checking the other bedrooms and baths.

  No Vanessa.

  He listened for a moment at the railing. Nothing. Only the normal creaks and shifts of an old house. Adrenaline surging in his veins, he crept downstairs.

  The faint ribbon of light beneath the library door stopped him in his tracks. What would Vanessa be doing in there? Or did the terrorists somehow bypass surveillance and the security system?

  He listened at the door, but heard only the whispery slide of papers. Then a faint hum. His computer? Crouched over in combat readiness, he inched the door-knob clockwise and pushed the door open.

  Vanessa sat at the mahogany desk in front of his open laptop. The desk lamp’s glow shimmered in the mass of hair falling on her shoulders and in her face. She wore his discarded T-shirt. She was leafing through papers from his briefcase.

  Pain ripped up from his belly to fill his chest and clutch at his throat. He stalked forward. “So this is how you show your trust in me?”

  She shot to her feet. Her eyes — her traitorous green eyes — filled with guilty panic. Her freckles stood out in stark relief as if painted. “Oh, God, Nick! It’s not what it looks like. I had to—”

  “Had to spy on me? DARK orders, of course. And were you also ordered to ply me with sex? To make sure I went along with their schemes? That sure as hell changes the meaning of professional.”

  It cut deep that she was no better than Danielle or the other society women. She didn’t want him for himself but for DARK security. Her perky, open act had sucked him in, softened him up, had even had him wanting the family and home he never expected to have. He’d given her his trust, and she stabbed him in the heart with it. The betrayal drummed in his head and clogged his lungs.

  “No! Never. How could you say such things? How could you think…?” She laid the papers on the desk. “You have to look at these. I found—”

  “You found nothing I want to see. Nothing but the end. Put those down and get out.” He hardly recognized his voice, flat and cold as winter.

  She came around the desk, stumbled and caught her balance on the edge. Anguish and uncertainty glittered in her eyes, but he steeled himself against the show of false emotion.

  “I did trust you. I do,” she said. “But I had no choice. The director and Byrne were afraid you might actually pay off New Dawn. I was going to tell you everything tomorrow.”

  Anger twisted his mouth around his reply. “Confess? Vanessa the Confessor. That’s a laugh. I’ve saved you the trouble. We have to go to Arlington together tomorrow. Keep away from me until then.”

  She pressed her hands to her stomach and brushed past him to the door.

  Ignoring her trembling mouth and ashen face, he turned aside.

  ***

  Vanessa trudged up the stairway with the weight of Nick’s rejection crushing her nearly double. His painful accusations roiled in her stomach and suffocated her. At the top, she avoided looking in the direction of the master bedroom and stumbled into her old room. She crawled into the four-poster and, shivering, wrapped herself in a cocoon of covers. She’d never be warm again.

  He was right that she’d lied to him, that she’d spied on him. And right to think all of that meant she didn’t trust him. He was wrong about the sex. But he wouldn’t have believed her either if she’d professed her love for him.

  Her eyes ached from the tears flowing into her pillow. Oh, God, she’d hurt him so. He’d begun to heal and find his pride and honor again, but she tore open his wounds and left him bleeding. It seemed neither his brother’s crimes nor his fiancée’s desertion wounded him this deeply.

  She saw the implication of that realization with scalding clarity. He loved her too.

  And now it was too late. Her spying had turned his love to hate.

  All the reasons she’d told herself anything long-lasting between them wouldn’t work came back to punch her in the belly. Maybe he did want her for herself after all, but the other reasons were still valid. He was a wealthy CEO, an international businessman who fit into a world she never could. And now he’d never trust her again.

  Her heart throbbed, then fell like a lump of coal low in her chest.

  Tomorrow they had to work together. From somewhere inside her, she had to find the courage to work beside him. To finish their mission.

  And then to walk away.

  ***

  “You don’t seem with it this morning, Wade,” J. T. McNair said. He carried the laptop case stuffed with money and paper. “You sure you’re up for this meet?”

  They walked to the garage, where Nick waited for the drive to Arlington. Vanessa glanced at her watch. Four o’clock exactly. Forty-five minutes before the meeting with the New Dawn leader or his agent.

  She knew she looked like hell. Her eyes were red and puffy to match her hair. She’d had no sleep. Caffeine and adrenaline would power her through. “I’m ready. Let’s roll up this slime.”

  For the first time in weeks, she carried a weapon, the S&W 640 in the inside-the-waistband holster concealed by a jacket. Practical brogans, not sexy slingbacks, were on her feet. Her hair hid the tiny mic in her ear, and she had a phone for emergencies. She felt herself. Less vulnerable.

  Except to one man.

  As they entered the garage, Nick looked up from the newspaper he was holding.

  She adjusted her jacket. On the surface, he looked better than she must. Handsome and potently male in his charcoal-colored wool suit and white turtleneck. Harder and more unreachable than she’d seen him, with an edge of pain that scraped her heart. Determination defined eyes as black and deep as the inside of a cave. His jaw could cut glass.

  “I’m gonna miss driving this car today.” A white grin flashed in McNair’s dark face. He stashed his burden in the trunk. The case as well as the car were fitted with tracking bugs. “You up on the drill?”

  Gaze skipping over her, Nick skewered the officer with a hard stare. “DARK cars stationed along the route to make sure we’re not ambushed. Arrive at the cemetery ten minutes ahead of the meet. Leave the car in visitor parking and take Roosevelt Drive directly to the Tomb of the
Unknowns and wait to be contacted. As soon as I’m approached, your people will move in.” There was a pregnant pause. “Satisfied?”

  “You wearing a wire? Mic work okay?”

  “Affirmative. Checked everything out earlier. Let’s go.” Nick sauntered around to the driver’s side as if going to a picnic.

  She slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. If for no other reason, she needed clamping down to keep her somersaulting nerves in check.

  Their erstwhile driver spoke into the headset he wore. “Fiancés headed out.” The code name made Vanessa wince.

  McNair bent to speak to her. “I’ll be here at the command post. Byrne’s already in place at Arlington. Harris heads your escort, in one of the cars en route.”

  “Got it.” She pressed the button to roll up the window.

  In silence they drove into D.C. on Connecticut Avenue. He followed the car’s GPS directions along the planned route and took no apparent notice of her presence. Tension rode between them, a thick wall more impenetrable than the stones Ray would slather with mortar on Monday.

  As they proceeded around Tenley Circle to continue on Wisconsin Avenue, the DARK vehicles were stationed at intervals, but she didn’t acknowledge them. The sunny Sunday offered barely any traffic to impede their progress. They left their escort behind as they crossed into Virginia and onto the George Washington Parkway. To her, the short drive lasted eons, but twenty minutes put them ahead of schedule.

  “I know you’re angry with me, but we have to talk to each other for this op to work.” Heart racing, she clenched her hands in her lap. They were icy beneath a film of sweat.

  His jaw tightened. He expelled a breath as though from a burst balloon. He jerked a nod at the dashboard clock. “We’re early. What do you suggest?”

  The tension wall seemed to thin and waver. She allowed herself to relax a millimeter. “Pull up ahead. We can wait awhile.”

  The Mercedes rolled to a stop in the small rest stop she indicated. No one occupied the five parking places or the lone picnic table.