Five
SHE WAS A FOOL, AND Kira admitted it as she allowed the waiter to lead her to the small table of the restaurant where she had arranged to meet her uncle that afternoon. The same restaurant where she knew Ian would be having lunch. Money in the right hands, and before the morning was over she had known where to find him.
She was pushing him, pushing herself, and she knew it. Ian was playing with fire, and she didn’t just mean the operation he was working against Fuentes and Sorrell.
She was terribly afraid he meant to kill Diego Fuentes, a monster, a brutal, merciless bastard who preyed on the weak. But he was still Ian’s biological father. A son should never have to kill his sire. The repercussions would be horrifying.
She had no proof of it, no verification. All she had was her own intuition, which she admitted was colored by her desire for him. And something much more.
There was a part of her that refused to let go of Ian. A part she had never known existed until last year. As though beneath the darkness that had been her life for the past ten years, a shadow of light had begun moving, weakening her, reminding her that she was a woman.
“Kira, is that you?”
Her head lifted, a smile of pleasure pulling at her lips at the sight of the small redhead who was coming to her table. Tehya Talamosi, with her shadowed eyes and somber face, and Kira’s suspicions that she was as much an agent as the Chameleon was.
“Tehya, what are you doing here?” Over the years Kira had met the other woman in several different countries, where she was usually involved with relief efforts of some sort.
“Vacation.” Tehya shrugged, her gaze flickering around the room. “I just wanted to stop and say hi.” She ducked her head almost shyly, allowing her long hair to shield her face.
“It’s good to see you again.” Kira watched her closely. She couldn’t be old enough to be an agent, yet Kira had the same feeling, the same internal defenses jumping to life, with the girl as she did with any other agent. Or enemy.
Tehya smiled back at her, her gaze flickering toward Ian and a few other scattered tables before she nodded and turned to walk through the restaurant.
In a glance Kira once again took in the way her denimclad legs moved. There was a stiffness that hadn’t been there the last time she saw her, a few years before. Her shoulders were straighter beneath the light cotton T-shirt she wore. And as always, Kira felt the need to protect the other girl.
She shook the feeling off. If Tehya needed her protection she had ample opportunity to ask for it. Kira made a mental note to have Daniel run her name through DHS tonight, see what he could dig up on her. This mission was too important and the realization that an unknown could be on the perimeters of it worried her.
Hiding behind her menu, she lowered her head and closed her eyes at the sound of Ian’s voice as she pushed Tehya to the back of her mind. So dark and rough. He was angry, she could tell. His voice roughened to a gravelly sound when he was angry. When he was aroused it was guttural. And once she had heard him chuckle, the sound like a coming storm at midnight. Rich and laced with sensuality.
Last night, his voice had been gravelly fury as he held her beneath him. Fury and arousal. The sensuality had been there, in his voice, in his dark eyes, in the brooding expression on his face. And the sound of it had struck her womb like an explosion of heat and light.
She let a little smile touch her lips at the thought of Ian’s reaction to her arrival. In hindsight, she could look at it with amusement, though the night before, her sexual frustration had been less than amusing.
“That smile makes grown men’s knees tremble in fear.”
Kira’s gaze jerked from the menu to Ian as he stood looking down at her. She tried to pretend surprise. She had felt him, had known he would end up speaking to her.
“Ian, what a surprise,” she said softly, laying the menu on the table as she crossed her legs, braced her elbow on the table, rested her chin in her bent wrist and gave him a mischievous, flirty look.
“A surprise, huh?” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks, causing the finely woven white cotton shirt he wore to ripple over his abs.
The shirt was a little loose, subtly shaping his broad shoulders and tight, leanly muscled body. His overly long dark blond hair was pulled to the nape of his neck, casting the harsh angles of his face into aching relief.
“Of course it’s a surprise.” She rounded her eyes and stared back at him as though his tone shocked her. “Do you think I’d stalk you?”
“Only if I gave you the chance.” He didn’t smile but he stared at her with hunger. A somber, dark hunger that had her stomach clenching in answering need.
“Would you like to join me?” She waved her hand to the three empty chairs. “My uncle should be here momentarily. I’ve chosen the most gorgeous little villa outside of town. A lovely white and red stucco with an outdoor pool and wraparound balcony. One side of the property is even bordered with a ten-foot handplaced stone fence.”
His eyes narrowed on her. Of course she had picked the villa next to Diego Fuentes’s, and Ian’s. Did he believe she was going to make this easy for him?
His lips thinned as she smiled back with subtle satisfaction.
“No. But you can join me.” He gripped her arm with the pretense of helping her from her chair before pulling her along with him into the reception room of the restaurant. From there, he led her to a hallway at the far end of the room and then to an unmarked door that he unlocked, opened. He pushed her into the darkened room.
Kira found herself flat against the wall, the door slamming closed behind them, even as Ian’s lips captured hers in a kiss that curled her toenails.
This was what she needed.
Her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders as he lifted her to him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, became swollen and sensitive, desperate for his touch.
When had she become so addicted to him? When had his touch become the focal point of all her fantasies and hungers?
Surely it had happened before Atlanta? One stolen night of sexual frustration couldn’t have developed over nearly a year to this burning hunger? Or had it? Perhaps it was a product of years of meeting him in the heart of danger, their eyes connecting, knowing he knew who she was each time, seeing the recognition in his gaze, in the slight tilt of his head in acknowledgment. So many years of it. Meetings in the dead of night, bullets blazing, nothing mattering but the success of the mission and the lives at risk.