Nick Carter - Death of the Falcon

“Don’t you ever just walk into a room?” I chided her.

“You never can tell who’s out there,” she replied, then threw her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply. Our tongues played games for a while, then she pulled her mouth away, saying, “Umm. I’ve been wanting to do that all day, Nick. You have no idea how hard it was being good while Sherima was around.”

“You have no idea how hard it was for me, too, but what about Sherima?” I asked, not entirely distracted by the fact that she was opening my shirt, loosening my belt, and guiding me toward the bed.

“She took a quick shower, then said she was going to nap until seven forty-five,” Candy replied, sitting on the bed and gesturing for me to join her. “That means we have over an hour together before I have to get back there and get dressed myself.”

I sat next to her, taking her face between my hands.

“You don’t mind living dangerously with our little secret, do you?”

At first, she smiled in response to that, but suddenly her face clouded over, and the large hazel eyes looked past me toward the door. A strange sort of bitterness rung in her voice as she said abstractedly, “Everyone has a’ secret. We all do, don’t we? You, me, Sherima, Abdul…” That last was uttered with a shadowy grimace, and I wondered for a second why. “Even his High and Mighty Majesty Hassan…”

She realized I was watching her closely as she spoke, and seemed to snap from her mood, snaking her slender arms around my neck and pulling me down.

“Oh, Nick, hold me. No secrets now — just hold me.”

I covered her full mouth with mine and kissed her. She ran her fingers through my hair, then trailed them over the back of my neck, returning my kiss long and deeply. We undressed each other. She moved to the bed.

She lay on her back, her long, wavy hair spread out on the pillow over her head. Her eyes were partly closed, and her face had become more relaxed. I ran a finger over her chin, then down around her long, classical neck, and she let a deep sigh escape her lips as my caresses became more intimate. She turned to her side, kissing me urgently.

For several minutes, we lay side by side, not speaking, touching each other almost tentatively, as though each of us expected the other to object in some way. I could see that she had slipped back into her own thoughts. Occasionally, she would shut her eyes tightly, as though erasing some thought from her mind, then open them widely again to look at me and allow a smile to cross over her lips.

Finally, I asked, “What is it, Candy? You’re doing a lot of thinking about something or another.” I tried to sound as off-handed as possible.

“Nothing — it’s really nothing,” she answered softly. “I–I only wish we’d met ten years ago…” She rolled to her back again and put her arms over her head. “Then so much wouldn’t have happened… With you to love…” She fell silent, staring up at the ceiling.

I raised myself on one elbow and looked down at her. I hadn’t intended to have this beautiful woman fall in love with me. But then I also hadn’t intended to find myself feeling as much as I did for her.

There was nothing I could say in response to her words that wouldn’t betray the fact that I knew much more about her own secret past — and what she probably was talking about just now — so I filled the silence with a long kiss.

In a moment, our bodies were saying everything that had to be said for the time. We made slow, easy love, the way two people who have known each other for a long time do, giving and receiving equal pleasure.

Later, as we lay quietly, Candy’s head on my shoulder, I could feel that she was relaxed, the tension of her previous thoughts vanished. Suddenly, she bolted upright.

“Oh, my God — what time is it?”

Taking my watch from the bedside table, I said, “Exactly seven-forty, ma’am,” affecting an exaggerated drawl.

She laughed. “I just love the way you talk, Nick.” And then, “But now I have to run.” Gathering her clothes and virtually jumping into them, she mumbled like a schoolgirl nearing the curfew hour. “God, I hope she didn’t wake up yet… Well, I’ll just say I had to go down to the lobby for something… Or that I took a walk or something…”

Dressed, she leaned over the bed and kissed me again, then turned to rush out of the room. “See you in forty-five minutes,” I called after her.

As I showered, I realized that no matter where I was focusing my thoughts, they always returned to form around the image of Candy, and to echo her words. People had secrets — that was a fact. And perhaps my secret from her was the biggest one of them all. But there had been something in her tone that bothered me.

This was turning into much more than the simple assignment of protecting the former Queen. There was a mystery that entangled the lives of these people, and although it might be a personal thing, it still intrigued me. Yet, there seemed to be more than personal considerations: and they seemed to focus around Abdul.

Bedawi could simply be jealous of the way in which I was usurping his role. He’d surely seemed humiliated about slipping up on his responsibilities back at the Falls, and his coldness toward me had only increased after that. Still, I couldn’t, help feeling that there was more to the formidable looking bodyguard than met the eye. The AXE backgrounder on him had been far too incomplete.

Hoping that Hawk would have more information on Bedawi’s Washington friends, I stepped from the shower under the warming rays of the overhead lamp. I’d have to put my speculations to rest for a while, I told myself, until I had more solid information to go on.

Selecting a dinner jacket that wasn’t without the Texas touch, I began dressing, laughing silently at the way Hawk hadn’t missed a single detail in my wardrobe. The jacket, although formal, had buttons with the logo of my supposed business.

“That was delicious, but I feel as if I’ve gained at least ten pounds,” Candy enthused as she and Sherima waited for me to retrieve their coats from the checkroom. If she’d put on extra weight, it didn’t show a bit, I thought as I handed over the claim checks. The floor-length white sheath dress she was wearing looked as if it had been stitched together on her, with loving hands fitting the soft material to every curve. Sleeveless and slit high, to her knees, it set off both the reddish highlights of her flowing hair and the golden tan that I knew covered every delicious inch of her body. I suspected she had selected the gown for just that reason.

“Me too,” Sherima agreed. “Nick, dinner was wonderful. The cuisine here is the equal to that of any I’ve had in Paris. Thank you so much for bringing us.”

“My pleasure, ma’am,” I said, taking her long sable coat from the attendant and settling it around her slender shoulders when she indicated that she preferred to wear it cape fashion, as she had earlier. She had worn a black empire gown that accented her shoulder-length raven hair and her high bosom that graced her slender figure. I had been proud to walk into the dining room at 1789 with two such lovely women and coolly return the envious stares of every man there. Through his seemingly endless connections, Hawk had managed on short notice to arrange a somewhat secluded table for us, but I realized the word had spread quickly of the former Queen’s presence when a stream of people began to find excuses to pass us as we dined. I was certain Sherima and Candy had noticed, too, but neither chose to remark about it.

“Here you are,” I said, holding out Candy’s leopard coat. As she slipped into the luxurious wrap that would have brought howls of outrage from wildlife conservationists, I let my hand linger on her shoulders for a moment, touching her soft, sensitive skin. She gave me a quick, knowing smile. Then, turning to Sherima, she said something that nearly choked me.