Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

She searched his eyes, as if looking for the truth and hoping she would not find it.

“You hated your father,” he went on, unable to help himself despite knowing how his words would make her feel. “Hadn’t seen him since you were a small girl. You’d lived all those years in the United States with your mother.”

His fingertips trailed down the smooth expanse of creamy flesh along the length of her slender neck. She shivered. “After your mother died you decided to seek out your father.” Her gaze locked with his, a new kind of heat glimmering there now. He smiled at the knowledge of how his touch affected her. “Apparently you didn’t like what you found.”

She jerked away from him. “Stop it!” She trembled visibly. He resisted the need to reach out to her…to undo the hurt he’d just wielded to assuage his own ego. Why did he force the issue? He knew she did not want to speak of it…wanted to pretend it never happened. But when she denied herself, she denied what they had once shared.

“It’s true, Amira. The sooner you come to terms with the truth the better.”

She shook her head and backed away from him, stopping only when the bed blocked her path. “I can’t take any more of this.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if needing the additional support he so wanted to give her but which she refused to accept.

He closed the distance between them once more, his need to know the full truth pounding in his brain. “There is someone else, is that the problem?” Rage blinded him for two beats. He wanted to kill the man who had touched her.

Ami tried to control her reaction to the question, but she was too late. She couldn’t. Recognition flared instantly in Michal’s eyes.

“This other man,” he demanded savagely, “did he touch you the way I touch you?”

Ami wanted to lie. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing the truth. The corded muscles of his neck, the rigid set of his broad shoulders and the hard, chiseled features of his darkly handsome face demolished any hope she had of holding her own. The temptation of those sensuous lips and the fire in those deep, dark eyes would not permit her to conceal the truth he wanted.

“No one has ever touched me the way you do,” she murmured, at once hating her vulnerability to him and loving the instantaneous physical response her words wrought. His nostrils flared and his gaze went straight to her mouth as if he longed to taste her.

The memory of the secret visit from Tanner poked through the swirling emotions reminding her of what she’d had to promise him. She would help with whatever mission they were orchestrating in exchange for being reunited with her son. Anxiety charged to the front of all else. As easily as Michal read her…

“I have to get out of here.” She spun away from him, praying she could keep the guilt out of her eyes. How could she do this? This breaking point had been building for four days. She’d held it together pretty well until today and something had finally just snapped inside her. Now she was falling apart. She prayed for the strength to hang on.

She kept thinking about how long it had been since she’d seen her baby and how very far away he was. What if he got sick while she was away? She had to get back home. Had to find a way. There was only one way.

She closed her eyes and swallowed back the wail of agony that rose in her throat.

“Tell me what frightens you so, Ami.”

She fought back the sobs and hugged herself more tightly at his gesture. This was the first time he’d called her Ami. She knew it was only to mollify her. That he, a man who killed as easily as he took a breath, would go that far to appease her simply didn’t make sense.

“I just need to get out of here.” Her breath hitched as his arms came around her and anchored her against his powerful body. She felt the steady beat of his heart and the fullness of his loins.

“I do not believe it is my company you wish to escape,” he whispered close to her ear.

Ami shivered and bit her lower lip to stave off a moan of need. How could he do this to her? Convert her anxiety and anger into something else altogether.

“Tell me what I can do,” he urged softly.

Another thought surfaced abruptly. Maybe she could use this to her advantage. Renewed guilt assaulted her with equal abruptness. She pushed it away, focused her mind on her son. She had to get back to him…whatever it took. “It’s the men,” she said carefully, testing the waters. She felt the tension in him increase. “They watch me constantly, make me feel like an outsider.”

He turned her slightly in his arms to look directly into her eyes and asked, “Has one of my men done something to make you feel this way?”

She had to really be cautious here. One wrong word could get someone killed. And though each and every one of his men were sadistic killers, she didn’t want to be responsible for a death. She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I feel like I’m in prison. Why can’t we go somewhere together alone? I’m sick to death of guards and guns.”

She held her breath and waited for his reaction.

He turned her around to fully face him and studied her more closely. For one endless second she was certain he’d seen through her ruse, then he said, “If it will make you happy we will take some time together.” He leveled that dark-as-midnight gaze on hers. “Alone.”

“THIS IS NOT THE WAY we do things!” Carlos argued bitterly as he paced the room.

Michal relaxed fully in his chair and sipped the whiskey the Spaniard had poured in celebration of their next quest. The order had come this morning. The hit was to be quick; one man and his four bodyguards. Simple. But before he died, the target would be held hostage for twenty-four hours until all his assets were drained. Therein lay the less than desirable part of the assignment.

Michal suffered not the slightest twinge of guilt for the target since he had made his vast fortune with drugs and the marketing of children he stole from the streets of various cities. His reputation for depravity was known far and wide. He did not deserve to live. But that was not the reason for his selection by the powers that be for execution. This target used his endless funds to support even more notorious terrorist activities. For this, he would die.

The man was immensely fortunate he had lasted this long in the cutthroat world of kill or be killed in which he appeared to prefer of late. That he had lasted so long was testament to his not having crossed the wrong path or pissed off the wrong organization. At least until now.

Michal inclined his head and studied the man who could so easily become his most challenging enemy as he continued to pace like a caged animal. This new need to display his self-importance became more blatant with each passing day. He arrogantly tested the limits of Michal’s patience. It was time to bring to an end to what could only result in a bad outcome, perhaps for both of them.

“You are right, my friend,” Michal confessed with a dash of proper humility.

Carlos did an about-face and stared at him, surprise clear on every hard contour of his face.

“However,” Michal continued, “this is the way we shall proceed this time. You and the others will go ahead of me. I will meet you at the rendezvous point in twenty-four hours.” Michal infused all the lethal finality he possessed into his gaze then. “Do you still have questions?”

The fury flared anew in Carlos’s eyes. “None. I already know the only answer I need.” He pointed in the direction of the bedroom where Amira rested. “This is because of her. I warn you, Michal, she will cost you everything. She betrayed you once before. How long before she betrays you yet again? You might not be so lucky this time.”