Secrets of the Dead (23 page)

She shifted in his lap. Found him hard and ready against her hip. His arms looped loosely around her waist, but she could feel the steely hardness of bunched muscles. The tight rein of control. And she wondered what it would take to make him lose that leash of restraint. To make him want and shake and need.

Deliberately, without breaking contact, she moved to straddle him, her hands going to thread through his hair as she slicked her tongue over the seam of his mouth. For a moment he was still. Then that leash slipped.

One arm banded around her and he pulled her closer, his mouth eating at hers, pressing her lips apart so his tongue could sweep in, staking a claim. And she couldn’t resist reveling in the torrent she’d unharnessed.

There was a basic carnal pleasure to be had in the mingling of breath, the clash of lips and teeth. But the ease with which sensation kick-started need caused a belated flicker of alarm. It would be a mistake to feel too much. Want too much. Eve recognized that. Just as she realized it was much too late to back pedal now. Thought fragmented as he nipped at her lip. Re-formed as he soothed it with the tip of his tongue. She had a sense of adventure that she kept hidden from the world. But she wondered now if Declan represented the biggest gamble she’d ever undertaken.

His hand slid beneath her sweater, and she jerked a little at the contact. His fingers spread against her skin, each digit an individual brand. Her palms itched with the need to reciprocate.

She unfastened the buttons on his shirt with fingers that had gone just a little unsteady. Then let her hand glide over his skin, one smooth stroke, and smiled against his lips when she felt his stomach jump and clench beneath her touch. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of spare flesh on him. Just smooth padded muscle, punctuated by intriguing peaks and hollows where bone met sinew.

His palm crept upward to cup her breast encased in the fabric of her bra, and Eve’s nipple tightened as he brushed it deliberately with his thumb. Senses heightened unbearably. Every nerve ending quivered in anticipation of a deeper contact. He drew her bottom lip into his mouth, and nipped not quite gently. The dual assault sent little pinwheels of desire swirling through her veins.

Their mouths twisted together and conscious thought receded. There was only the taste of him, dark and faintly primitive. His clever fingers knew just how to tease and tantalize until she strained against him, desperate for more. And then his hand slipped inside her bra to cover her breast, and excitement thrummed through her system.

Her movements lacked finesse as she spread his shirt wide to skate both hands over his chest. Pent up need was pumping through her, lending a sense of urgency.

She wasn’t aware that he’d unhooked her bra until it was loose. And then it was swept away with her sweater and he brought her closer, the breath hissing from between his teeth at the sensation. There was an intoxicating pleasure to be had pressed against him like this. Breasts against his chest. Flesh to flesh. To feel the leap of his heart when she scraped his nipple lightly with her nail. To hear his breathing lose its steady rhythm and go just a bit choppy. And to feel. God, to feel. His fingers rolled her nipples to taut knots of nerves that sent shocks of desire straight to her womb.

She’d known passion before, but not this longing that was like a fever in her blood. A yearning that could only be quenched by one man. Desperation sizzled in her, a lit match to a fuse. The strength of it had her squirming on his lap in a way that had him groaning.

There was a ferocious hunger evident now as his mouth ate at hers. His arms wrapped around her, a tight band that fitted her more tightly against him. She felt him rise, cradling her in his arms as he strode from the room. By the time she had her eyes open to half mast she already felt the mattress beneath her shoulders. Then he was following her down on it

There was no teasing in his touch now. Just unvarnished need sheened with desperation. And that fanned the flames of her own desire to a scorching level. Their mouths twisted together as their kiss became deeper. Wet. Frankly carnal. Hands battled to undo buttons and zippers.

She wasn’t used to this fierce compulsion to strip a man bare, to press so close that there wouldn’t even be a whisper of air between them. To explore every hard inch of his body and lose herself in a journey of discovery that she didn’t want to end.

He released her mouth to drag her jeans down her thighs and stripped off his own clothes before stretching out beside her on the bed. She arched her back, moaning a little at the kiss of flesh wherever they touched. Heat, a quick stabbing spear of it, arrowed up her spine. She couldn’t get enough of him as she ran her palms over his arms, over his strong shoulders. She pressed her lips to his chest, ran her hands over his belly where the muscles quivered beneath her touch. And lost her breath in the next moment when his hands cupped her breasts, stroking and squeezing lightly in turn.

She nipped at his bicep in a savage need for flesh. Her fingers closed around his heavy sex and it pulsed in her grasp, hard and ready. Straining for release. Her fingers glided down the shaft and back once, twice and again. Then faltered in their rhythm when he bent to reclaim her nipples.

Colors fragmented behind her eyelids. And when his teeth scraped flesh, an edgy blade of need nicked over nerve endings already unbearably sensitized. His fingers, those clever wicked fingers, traced the seam of her leg teasingly before delving inside her panties, cupping her where she was damp and heated.

Her head lolled, her breath coming in short ragged pants. He took advantage of the position to raise his head and cruise his mouth along her throat, nipping at the sensitive cord there. And when his hand slipped inside her panties to part her folds, dipping one finger inside her, Eve’s limbs went to water.

Sensation after sensation battered at her. Even as he explored her, his thumb pressed and released against her clitoris in a manner designed to drive her to madness. It was a journey she was determined not to take alone.

She stroked him, alternating between a lighter touch and the firmer one his hunger would demand. He thrust against her hand demandingly, and her lips curved in a moment of pure feminine satisfaction. Heat was licking up her spine. Her back bowed as sensation after sensation battered at her. A moment later her climax ripped through her, graying her vision and startling a cry from her.

“Evie.” She shivered at the sound of the nickname on his lips, the guttural tone of his voice as he uttered it. “More. Again.”

She shook her head weakly. It was too much. Too soon. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t claw through the fog of release to climb the slippery slope of desire once again. But he proved her a liar in the next instant. His touch deft and insistent he had pleasure building again in long lush waves. Helplessly her hands climbed to his shoulders. Clutched there as her body quaked and followed him up and up to a peak he was relentlessly driving her toward.

Then he pushed her over it. Ruthlessly using hands and lips and teeth to intensify sensation from a thousand individual pulse points so the implosion went on and on until she was a weak shuddering mass.

Eve felt him move away, reached out a protesting hand. Her body still shook with the eddies of her release but still it called for the feel of him, hot and hard pressed against hers. And then she heard the rustle of his clothes, knew he was digging in the pocket of his jeans. It was long moments before she felt the mattress dip beneath the weight of his knee. She curled her arm around his neck to draw him down to her. His heart was hammering against hers, his muscles quivering and jumping wherever she touched him. Anticipation pooled in the pit of her stomach. Because she was going to do her level best to fray his last thread of control.

Releasing him after a brief kiss, she hooked her thumbs in the sides of her panties and shimmied out of them, taking far longer than the act would usually require. Then caught his gaze on hers. Heavy lidded and intent. And impossibly the blood in her veins went molten again.

He stretched out on top of her, his weight on his elbows. And when he entered her in one smooth stroke, she lost her breath. Both of them stilled, bodies quivering. Eve was a little stunned. A bit panicked. He filled her with a completeness that bordered on discomfort. She shifted slightly, feeling surrounded by the breadth of him. Then stopped as she felt the delicate throb of his penis. Felt herself soften as a fist of need clutched in her belly.

She opened her eyes. Found him watching. And her breath strangled in his lungs. His eyes were the color of night fog. And in that moment she knew he thought of nothing but her. Saw nothing but her.

Eve arched her hips a silent invitation that he met with a long slow thrust. His hand crept between their bodies to cup her breast, while the other slipped under her hips. She could read his urgency in the way the skin pulled tightly across his cheekbones. In his clenched jaw. But still he held back, keeping his movements controlled.

In the face of her earlier mind-shattering pleasure it seemed only fair to torch his effort at control. She smiled into his eyes. Reached down to touch him where their bodies were joined. And felt his body quake as his restraint abruptly snapped.

Declan surged against her against her over and over and this time Eve met him stroke for stroke. Tiny balls of heat were firing through her veins. Her vision was hazing. The night rushed in crowding their bodies on the bed. She could see nothing but him. Hear only the rasp of her breathing. The slap of flesh against flesh. The beat of her blood roaring through her veins. Hammering in her ears.

Her legs climbed his. She was wrapped around him and still it wasn’t close enough. His hips pounded against hers in a primal frantic pace until he surged wildly, and she felt the last little bit of sanity wing away as the climax flung her over the precipice.

And when he followed her into madness, it was with her name on his lips.

Chapter 11

Eve felt as
though she was swimming to the top of a deep pool, an anchor on each ankle. Each time she nearly broke the surface she was weighted down again to be pulled into a deep slumberous warmth. One that tempted her to burrow deeper into it.

Then the weights were removed. The warmth disappeared. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to wake. A light slap on her bottom completed the process. She rolled and bolted upright in bed. Glared at the offender.

Then blinked. Declan was next to her. Not on her bed, but
in
it. He was leaned over her, reaching for something on the nightstand. The blankets were trapped beneath his hips, and she yanked at the sheet to have at least a modicum of cover. Memories from this morning came flooding back and suffused her with heat. They’d fallen asleep wrapped around each other, his leg pinning both of hers. Eve tiptoed through her feelings about that, like searching through an emotional minefield. She couldn’t find a single ounce of regret.

“Raiker.” He mouthed the word at her. She straightened abruptly as he thumbed on the speakerphone.

“I’m told you were involved in the raid last night,” the man began without preamble.

“We had a small part. Just returned from the interviews a few hours ago.”

“Which is why I let you sleep in.” The man actually sounded serious. But then, he always did. “I have your next assignment. Get back to me on video chat.” The call ended with the abruptness Eve was beginning to associate with the man.

Declan disconnected and sent her a slow smile. “Lucky he didn’t have video on now.”

“Video.” Her eyes went wide and she pushed at his bare chest. “We have to get dressed!”

“He’d probably appreciate that.” Declan scratched his cheek. He’d shaved before they’d left to meet Stillions last night, but his jaw was again shadowed with whiskers. She just might get addicted to the look of him unshaven. “And he couldn’t know that although we got home at nine AM, we didn’t spend all the intervening time sleeping.”

The flush his words elicited seemed to spread from the inside out. Eve didn’t have vast experience in morning afters, and certainly none recently. But she knew it was ridiculous to feel embarrassed to slip from the bed nude, after the hours he’d spent mapping every inch of her body with his hands. And mouth.

Heat bloomed inside her, slow and insidious. “So…” She tried for a matter-of-fact tone. “Your clothes are in the other room.”

“They are, aren’t they?” His smoke colored eyes were laughing at her. And he didn’t make a move from the bed.

She gave him a nudge with her shoulder. “Go put them on.”

“Trying to get rid of me so I won’t see you naked?” He leaned forward then to brush his mouth over hers. “An odd response for a woman who spent a few spectacular hours under me. Over me, too, in a few instances.”

“Declan.” Her mind went blissfully blank for an instant when her lips—completely devoid of logic or good judgment—kissed him back. “Raiker’s waiting.”

“Those are the only words that would get me out of your bed right now.” With a lithe movement he rolled away from her and off the mattress. Then walked to the door, blissfully unselfconsciously nude. She was female enough to enjoy watching the play of muscle across his shoulders and narrow hips before leaping from the bed and pulling on clothes. She met him at the desk in the corner of the front room, where he already had the laptop open and powering on.

“How long until you have the video chat going?”

He gave her an understanding look. “You’ve got a minute. No more.”

Dashing into the bathroom, she grabbed a brush and dragged it urgently through her hair. There was nothing to be done with it short of washing and styling, and she didn’t have time for that. Dragging the length into a ponytail, she secured it at her nape and hurried back to the computer. Seconds later, Adam Raiker’s likeness filled the screen.

He looked freshly shaven, dressed in a suit and looked far more awake than she was feeling. It was a bit of a jolt to look at the time on the computer and see that it was already early afternoon.

“Sun Yanyu, the woman you knew as Xie Shuang, still isn’t talking. And Malsovic hasn’t been found yet.” Adam’s voice was carefully expressionless. “He must have left in a hurry. The safe in his room was open, and it was filled with identification papers on the women. Phony passports in their names. I’m told high quality ones. But no ID was found for Malsovic. And nothing for the other man, Marko Zupan. They did find Hobart’s ID where you discovered it under the bed in Malsovic’s room.”

“He had a lot of equipment in there,” Eve recalled. “A laptop and several other machines that looked like printers.”

“None were recovered.”

“He’s on the run,” Declan said surely. “And when he leaves the country you can bet it will be with a new name and a falsified passport.”

“That would be the best case scenario. We’ve got his likeness out to every airport in the country, as well as to Customs and Border Protection. He won’t get far.”

“If this other man, Zupan, is also missing, they’re likely to be together, especially if the man’s ID is missing, while the other three men’s were not.”

“Conjecture,” Raiker said impatiently. “What we need are answers.”

“Conjecture might lead to answers,” Eve said imperturbably. “For instance, all the spokes in this wheel seem to lead back to bin Osman at the center. Until seven years ago he was running a similar illegal operation in the exact same hotel. You’ve placed Shuang there at the time his operation was raided. Malsovic shot Hobart with the same gun that killed your father-in-law nine years earlier. You’ve been looking for the link to your son. It seems to me that those three people are the link. We don’t know why yet,” she admitted. “But if Shuang could be convinced to talk, I’m guessing she can tell us.” The woman’s real name was unimportant. How she was linked to Royce did.

“Perhaps. But she’s buttoned up now. And with the other agencies involved, I don’t have a great deal to bargain with.”

“Shuang berated him for not being there a couple nights ago.” Declan had pulled on jeans, but hadn’t bothered with a shirt. Next to him Eve felt positively nun-like in jeans and a turtleneck. “Maybe he has a girlfriend stashed somewhere. An apartment.”

“That’s the working assumption. Burke has already started looking at rental properties within a ten-mile radius of the hotel. We’ll assume for the moment that the man would want to stay fairly close. Perhaps within walking distance. You’ll join him. He started with those in ethnic neighborhoods.”

“Did anyone find the rifle last night?” Eve asked.

“It was discovered blocks from the hotel in a Dumpster. I’ve offered the services of my lab pro bono, so all physical evidence has been transported there. Including the computers taken from Shuang’s and the meeting room.”

“I’m not so sure the attendant at the front desk didn’t tip Shuang off when SWAT entered the hotel,” Declan said. “I can’t figure any other way she would have known to try to escape. I blocked internal access to the cameras minutes before the raid began.”

Raiker smile was fierce. “She definitely knew what was happening. She’d started a seven pass erase on her computer before she tried to escape. Doesn’t matter. My people will recover what’s there. They’re working on her encrypted emails. Few of them are in English. Eve.” She started a little at the use of her name. “I’m sending a driver to bring you to my labs. It would be easiest to have you on site to translate whatever personal correspondence we’re able to recover.”

Adrenaline was already humming in her veins. “All right, I’ll be ready. I’d appreciate it if you talked to the federal agents about a T Visa for Brina.”

“I did. Stillions said you’d already brought it up.” She had, several times, but she thought the request would carry more weight if it were repeated by Raiker. “I’ll keep tabs on the issue.”

Because she doubted very much that the man made promises he didn’t keep, she was satisfied with that.

“What are the orders for whoever finds Malsovic?”

Declan’s question had a quick shudder working down Eve’s spine. For the first time it occurred to her to be concerned about the assignment Declan had been given. Malsovic was always dangerous. Cornered he’d be deadly.

“Of course we want him alive if possible. But be prepared to use force to defend yourselves. No heroes, Gallagher.” Raiker’s tone brooked no argument. “The man has already ruined enough lives. I don’t want you or Burke to be next on the list.”

She barely noticed when the screen went black. Her attention was fixed on Declan. One corner of his mouth kicked up as he returned her gaze. He reached out a hand and slid the ponytail holder away. Gave her hair a shake.

“Declan.” Caught between concern for him and exasperation, she pushed back the curls with one hand.

“Eve.” He cocked his head, considering her. “I think I could get used to this. Why don’t you just wear it like that?”

She gave him a pitying look, brushed his hand away when he reached up to stretch out a curl. “Spoken like someone with straight hair. Be serious. What Raiker said earlier? About staying safe?” She had his attention now. His smoke colored eyes sobered. “He wasn’t disparaging your abilities. Wasn’t being overprotective.”

“Where exactly is this going?”

“It’s going right here.” She reached up to cup his jaw, was momentarily distracted by the rasp of his whiskers against her fingertips. “I trust you as an agent.” And she’d shown far more trust of him as a man hours earlier. “So I know you’ll make smart decisions. I will be seriously pissed off if you get yourself shot today.”

His smile was slow and wide and devastating. “I think I’ve already learned the dangers of pissing you off.” The kiss he pressed on her would have to last her all day. And maybe, just maybe the memory of it would keep worry about his safety at bay.

_______

“Shuang has a
dozen communications here, all written in the past three months, that mention bin Osman. On all she signed her name as Sun Yanyu.” Eve was sitting in a conference room in Raiker’s computer forensics wing of his lab building. The structure was huge, with eight different laboratories and countless other examination and conference rooms. She was certain that if Macy Burke hadn’t been guiding her, she could be hopelessly lost for days before ever finding her way out of the building again.

Macy, who was Raiker’s top forensic linguist as well as Kellan Burke’s wife, had printed off the emails. Eve had them spread across the table in chronological order. “All are written in Malay.”

“So Yanyu is bilingual,” the other woman observed.

Eve was scanning the first of the emails. “Many Chinese are able to converse in Malay and English. It is also common for Malaysian youth to be multi-lingual, as well. These emails are to five different people.” Eve picked up the documents, scanning each before setting it down to go on to the next. “A couple appear to be lining up a new supplier for more women.” The news was surprising. Malsovic had still been on site, yet these communications were dated several weeks ago. Had the two had a falling out, perhaps after the attempted kidnapping? Or was Shuang planning to get rid of the man?

Studying the remaining correspondences, she said, “There are three recipients for the rest of these, all with the same subject. She was looking for bin Osman, and apparently was unable to contact him directly.” Eve went silent for a moment as she mentally translated the rest of the text. “She was asking for contact information. And being stonewalled.” She’d had a similar reason for the last call they’d picked up on the transmitter, Eve recalled.

“But there’s no indication of why she was looking for the man.”

“Not yet.” And that was really the question burning inside Eve. She set down the document and moved on to the next. “I’ll type up the translation for each of these before I go. We know they were both in the US up to seven years ago, at the same hotel where she now resides. If bin Osman was the head of the same human trafficking operation that she was a victim of, why would she want anything to do with him now? The story she told the police at the time is that he brought her to the country under false pretenses and forced her into prostitution.” It was hard to feel sympathy for the woman since a few years later she’d done the same to other females. And from the fear with which Brina had regarded her, Shuang had been brutal. “But enduring a trauma like that can affect people differently.” Perhaps it had stripped the woman of empathy for others. And gave her the idea for how she could wield power, by transforming herself from victim to predator. “It might give her a peculiar sense of satisfaction in running the operation in the same hotel where she had been held prisoner.”

Eve read silently for several minutes, working through most of the pages quickly before she slowed, shock working through her. “This one is from Ahmed Pascal and the tone is quite combative.” She began to translate aloud. “I have mentioned your interest to Rizqi bin Osman and he has instructed me to tell you that he wishes you die a thousand deaths. If you attempt to come here and see him yourself, be assured I will personally see that you meet with the end he wishes for you.”

“Harsh words,” observed Macy. She seemed far quieter and more serious than her husband. Eve found herself wondering how the two had gotten together. “But bin Osman escaped the country and any punishment when his hotel was raided, correct?”

“That’s what Raiker said.” Eve sat back. Considered. “Of course he would have lost the hotel. His…” she made a moue of distaste… “inventory, to use a word. His livelihood. That would have been a substantial financial loss. But why would he blame Shuang for that?” She couldn’t get used to using the woman’s real name.

Her gaze returned to the sheets in front of her. “In the next one she begs Pascal to carry a message to bin Osman about a business proposition that she knows the man will want to hear.” She set the note down and slid the final one forward so she could read it. Felt herself go a bit lightheaded when she did.