For a moment, just a moment, he let himself remember his mother’s smile. No matter how frightened he knew she had been, she had always found a way to smile at him, to promise him that all things pass: anger, pain, danger.
Be the best you can be, Ian. Be strong and brave, and know you’re being just. That’s all that matters. Know you’re being just.
Those words whispered through his mind and sliced at his heart. He knew she wouldn’t see what he was doing as just. She would never condone him killing the father who had nearly destroyed both of them so many years ago.
Sometimes, though, a man had to do what was necessary to protect the just, the innocent. Too many lives were held in the balance now. Sorrell and Diego Fuentes both would have to die.
But first, he had to find Kira Porter and make damned certain she left Aruba. How the hell was a man supposed to destroy the monsters of the world when he knew a delicate bit of satin and lace was going to stand in his way? And she was there to stand in his way. He knew it. He could feel it. And he would be damned if he was going to allow it.
Three
HE WAS THERE. SHE KNEW he was.
The moment Kira stepped out of the elevator of her hotel that evening she knew Ian was waiting in her room. Her breasts hardened, her nipples peaked against the thin leather bustier covering them, and her body came alive with instant, blazing heat.
It wasn’t any particular premonition. She would have liked to say she could just feel him. The truth was it was the presence of the bodyguard leaning casually against the wall several feet from her door that clued her in.
Deke Santiago. Age thirty-six, married once, widower. A dishonorably discharged Ranger. Dishonorable because he had nearly killed his commanding officer for screwing his then wife.
The court-martial had earned him a year in Leavenworth because he couldn’t prove the adultery. There, he had met up with one of Diego Fuentes’s lieutenants; four years later he had flown into Colombia and begun his life of apparent crime.
She paused as the elevator doors closed behind her, flicked a long swath of black hair over her shoulder, and sighed with an edge of irritation, aware of the security cameras trained on her. She had an appearance to maintain. That of bored socialite and thrill seeker. Anyone searching for information would check security cameras. She knew, because it was something she did.
She moved along the hall, ignoring him. That’s what she did with bodyguards, she pretended to ignore them. Her own, Daniel Calloway, was proof of that.
“I won’t need you to check the room tonight, Daniel,” she informed him as they neared his connecting room. “You can go on to bed.”
“Are you sure, Ms. Porter?” His voice was colored with suspicion as he held to his role and Deke’s lips quirked mockingly at the challenge in Daniel’s voice.
“I’m positive. I’m certain the room is secure.”
Daniel wasn’t a stupid man, he knew Ian was there as well as she did. He entered his own room and closed the door behind him as Kira pulled her key card from the lining on the inside of her sinfully high-heeled boot.
She had hit the clubs early that evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ian before he found her. It seemed it had been a wasted effort. How long had he been waiting in her room instead?
She was nervous. She hadn’t been nervous over a man since the last time she had seen Ian. Before that, she had never known a moment’s nerves with a potential lover.
She could feel the blood rushing through her veins, need pooling between her thighs, and a haunting ache tightening her chest. An ache that had little to do with the arousal, but much to do with the emotions he inspired in her. Emotions as alien as the nerves.
“Is he upset?” She twirled the card in her fingers as she stared back at Deke, allowing a small grin to curl the edges of her lips.
Deke glanced at her door, a grin quirking his sensual lips. “Ask him yourself and see.”
As she turned back to the door it swung open. A hard hand gripped her wrist and jerked her inside before the door slammed closed behind her.
She was pushed against it, her breath whooshing from her lips as her hands were gripped in one of his, held high above her head, and every inch of her body was molded to the hard length of his.
Her juices pooled between the lips of her sex then eased into the silk of the thong she wore beneath her leather pants. Her nipples spiked impossibly harder, and she swore she could feel a bead of sweat tickling between her breasts.
No one had ever felt like Ian. Hard, in control, commanding. Every touch, every action, gauged for maximum pleasure.
The hand holding her wrists tightened as the fingers of the other threaded through her hair and pulled her head back to stare into the blazing heat of his deep brown eyes. Eyes almost as rich as brandy, fired with dark little hints of red and filled with fury.
Dark blond hair fell over his forehead; the rich mix of colors, sun lightened and thick, lying long along his nape and falling over his brow made her long to bury her fingers in it again.
He turned her on in ways she had never been turned on before. She dreamed about sex with Ian. Lusted for it. Ached for it. She had agreed to deceive him for the slightest chance to be touched by those hard hands again.
“What the fucking hell are you doing here?” he snarled down at her as his head lowered.
His lips buried in her shoulder, opening to allow his teeth to grip the flesh there, his tongue to lap over it with quick heated strokes as she jerked against him.
“Business.” Her head lowered as well.
The strong column of his neck was there for her enjoyment. Her teeth raked it. She licked slowly and the taste of male lust exploded against her taste buds.
God, he tasted good. She sucked at the flesh, a little moan escaping her throat as he picked her up, turned her, and in the next second bore her to the bed.
“Ian.” She gasped his name, feeling the hard length of his body covering hers, his thighs spreading hers, his cock pressing hard and demandingly into the butter-soft leather covering her sex.
Her hands were still stretched above her head, her breasts perilously close to spilling from the cups of the leather bustier she wore.
She felt bound. Helpless. She had never felt that way with a man before. She had never wanted to feel that way until Ian had shown her the pleasure to be found there. Now she craved it. Craved him with a hunger that refused to be quelled.
“You have no business here.” His lips drew back from his teeth as his free hand tugged at the ties that secured the front of the bustier. “No business here. No business close to here.”