Protector Page 6

  Not that there was anyone to hear her now, the tourists disappearing, finding their way into distant bars and restaurants.

  Leaving the rocky beach to the two of them.

  She drew in a shaky breath. “This has been one of the worst days of my life.”

  Okay, the day Uncle Simon died and she’d realized the depth of her family’s dirty business had been far, far worse, but times like this brought that one right back to the fore until it felt like she was in the middle of that horrific moment all over again. “Say something, damn it.”

  “Poor little rich girl didn’t get all the attention she wanted from Daddy. What a tough life you and your cousin Lucy must have lived, tearing up the town with your old man’s money.” He shook his head. “You’re breaking my heart to bits.”

  His disdain grated over her as he stood silhouetted by moonlight. Like an avenging angel, he dispensed judgment on her superficial existence. As if she hadn’t worked her ass off to create a life in Dallas that didn’t involve her father. As if she still collected some kind of trust fund allowance for being part of a richly corrupt clan. Pale beams shone through the loose folds of his shirt, outlining his trim waist, his broad chest.

  Surprise, surprise. He thought she was another airhead heiress just like half the women traveling on the Fortuna this week. She felt herself deflate, knowing this argument wasn’t worth the time. That he had every reason to think that of her when he didn’t know her at all.

  Slowly, she climbed up the incline until she faced him, toe to toe, heated breath to breath. “I can’t believe I thought there was something halfway interesting about you.” She pushed him, preferring even anger to his continued calm. “You’re just like every other man I’ve met from Tuscany to Texas, too scared of my father to take me on.”

  If the storm clouds in his murky eyes could produce, she would be drenched to the skin. Jolynn sidled a step closer, so full of pain she felt the need to unleash some of it on her nearest target. “You’re afraid of him, but you want me anyway. I can feel it. You’re not as cool as you want me to believe.”

  His throat convulsed in a long swallow at odds with his impassive expression.

  Encouraged, she tucked her hand inside his collar and lifted the chain free. She caressed a finger along the links, stopping at the dangling medal. His body heat lingered on the silver.

  She tugged harder until the chain went taut, but still he didn’t come closer.

  Grabbing her wrist, he pulled back. “You’re just using me to lash out at your father.”

  His hoarse tone dashed away doubts she might have harbored about her effect on him. “So what if I am?”

  Jolynn angled forward until her mouth sketched over his. She nipped his bottom lip and tugged it between her teeth. The simple touch flooded along her skin like an icy waterfall, invigorating, almost painful.

  He lifted his hands, the magnificent hands she’d watched at the casino, and cradled her face in his palms. His fingers slid into her hair with the same ease he’d employed to sail a card across the table. He drew small circles against her scalp, his touch shimmering through her.

  His brown eyes closed. Charles flinched as if in pain, a feeling Jolynn understood too well.

  His lowering face eclipsed the moon as he claimed her mouth. His lips skimmed over hers with gentle strokes that quickly turned hungry and bold. The pounding waves echoed the pulsing of blood through her veins.

  Her arms looped around his neck. She reveled in the luxurious glide of his hair between her fingers. His tongue met hers, stroking, possessing.

  She pressed closer, sealing herself to him. A distant part of her brain understood that she was seeking some assurance of her worth, even on the most basic of levels. That didn’t stop her bruised heart from accepting the comfort, the blessed forgetfulness brought by his hard and honed body against hers.

  Charles’s mouth slid away from hers, and she moaned her regret until he slid his parted lips across the tender flesh of her neck, kissing, tasting. His hands drifted low on her hips, lifting her against him, offering an unmistakable message of desire broadcast even through his pants, her jeans.

  Her hands roamed along his back, scratching a path over the cotton of his shirt, the cut of his muscles bulging with tension. Her fingers raked lower down his back until her wrist nudged against something solid tucked in the back of his waistband, like a cell phone maybe? A shiver washed over her as she thought of all the men in her father’s world who carried guns as casually as others carried pagers and phones. She’d barely had time to register the thought when he pulled away.

  The breeze sweeping across the river encircled Jolynn, jolting her as goose bumps popped along her skin. Charles stood a foot apart from her, with his hands braced just above his knees. He hung his head, drawing in labored breaths.

  “Damnation.” He hissed the curse through gritted teeth. “Jolynn, go back to Dallas.”

  His words, mirroring those of her father, slapped her. How she’d been sent away after her uncle’s murder. How often she’d been shuttled from boarding school to boarding school over the years. She was an adult now. She didn’t have to put up with this crap from anyone anymore.

  Living in Dallas, tearing through the business world with the same wildness she went through men, wasn’t getting her anywhere. God knows, hitting on Charles Tomas hadn’t accomplished anything other than dishing up a whopping helping of humiliation.

  She didn’t even want to think about the weakness she’d shown him out here— an unwilling witness to a meltdown that had probably been ten years in the making. Since when did she let her guard down like that?

  If she’d learned anything climbing her way up the corporate ladder, she learned that when something didn’t work, don’t be an idiot repeating the same mistakes again and again. Try something new.

  It was time to stop letting her unresolved issues with her father mess with her decisions. What just happened here solidified what she’d just begun to grasp in her father’s hospital room. She wasn’t going anywhere until she had answers from her father about her past and his present.

  No more secrets. She would be persistent, digging as deep as she needed to resolve things with her father once and for all.

  “Return to Dallas? I must have forgotten to tell you. I’m spending some quality time with the old man after his whole health scare. What better way to do that than go on an eight-day cruise with him?”

  His jaw went slack, his eyes guarded.

  Reveling in her hollow victory, she marched past him toward the Maserati, the Fortuna license plate mocking her every step.

  * * *

  Jolynn drove like a maniac.

  Undeterred, Chuck hooked his elbow on the passenger door of the Maserati and just watched the coast speed by. Wind whipped through the car, the coastal highway perched close to the rocky ledge with the sea crashing hard on the shore below.

  Although she expected to freak him out by driving like an Indy 500 pro, then she had another think coming. This was small potatoes in comparison to the missions he’d flown as an air force test aviator.

  This woman, however, was giving him emotional whiplash. The first brush of her lips against his had almost sent him to his knees like an untried teen. What was he thinking allowing himself to lose control?

  Allow? Just looking at Jolynn Taylor made him question his sanity more than his military shrink ever had. The woman was dangerous to his concentration, not to mention his mission. He turned away to look at the rolling waves again, sea mist hanging in the air and stinging his face.

  Thank God she’d left her purse— and the silver token surveillance device— in the car so no one else heard him kiss her like an idiot with no will. Like the fool he’d been two years ago. He should have listened to his instincts back in Nevada. His edge was gone.

  He refused to consider what could have happened if Jolynn hadn’t nudged his gun as she stroked his back with insistent, arousing hands. Luckily, he’d still possessed a fr
agment of reason and recognized the insanity of what he was doing. She was the daughter of a major suspect.

  She could be involved.

  Believing her “poor little rich girl” act was dangerous. If she was acting, people would die.

  And if she wasn’t acting? Then the best thing he could do was keep his distance because she would be hurt a helluva lot more when his role in bringing down her father came out.

  Another scenario— even worse— exploded in his head. What would her father’s underworld buddies think if they discovered she was hanging out with an undercover military operative, someone with dark ops connections?

  Once they got back to the Fortuna, he needed to focus his fact gathering on someone else, like the director of operations. The colonel could chat up Jolynn.

  And the knowledge that Scanlon wouldn’t hit on her since he was far gone on Livia Cicero?

  Mighty convenient.

  Hell. He was so screwed.

  Another gust of wind tossed an auburn lock across his cheek, plastering it against his skin for four heartbeats before it slithered away.

  His body throbbed rock hard just that fast.

  There was no denying it. He wanted her. And that in and of itself knocked him on his ass all over again.

  After his capture, after the torture and beating in Turkey, he hadn’t had sex with a woman for nearly a year. He hadn’t even woken up with morning wood. Eventually, he’d had a girlfriend and a couple of flings. But things still weren’t right in his brain.

  What a helluva time to learn his libido at least was one hundred percent in working order.

  * * *

  Parked back beside Berg at the mobile command center, Rex couldn’t deny that his old habits were alive and well.

  Rex could almost hear his dead wife tsk-tsking at him for using work to avoid things he didn’t want to deal with. Countless times, Heather had walked up behind him at the computer and slipped his glasses off his face before sliding into his lap. Then she would work on providing ample distraction—

  His brain screeched to a halt on the thought. Yeah, he was also trying to push away the feelings stirred by Livia by ramping up memories of Heather. Of how damn unfair it was that his wife had died of a heart attack at only forty-one years, for God’s sake. Normally, that offered the splash of ice water guilt he needed. For some reason, it wasn’t working so great tonight. The exotic scent of Mediterranean herbs and flowers— Livia’s perfume— lingered so tangibly he could almost swear it clung to his clothes the way she clung to his memory.

  And now he saw that she hadn’t stayed in her stateroom, damn it all. She’d returned to the casino for God only knew what reason. Livia always had done whatever the hell she wanted.

  He spotted a pair of their CIA compadres in the gambling crowd cruising the slot machines. Reassuring to know they had Livia’s back even when he couldn’t. There were far too many other eyes tracking her moves.

  She was beautiful, fascinating— and yeah, sexy as hell. He would have given his left nut to kiss her back in her suite. But she’d made it clear that she refused to compete with the memory of his dead wife and that time had passed for them. Which made him feel like a damn stalker watching footage of her when he really should turn in for the night.

  Past your bedtime, Grandpa?

  Not for the first time, the age difference pinched him. Hard. Those CIA agents in their prime were more her age. His knuckles cracked.

  He stared at his hands, surprised. When had he made a fist?

  “Something wrong, Colonel?” Berg asked, glancing over.

  “Nah, I’m good.” He forced his attention back to the present. “Is the listening chip Tanaka passed over to Jolynn Taylor working again?”

  “Seems to be, not that Chuck’s doing jack shit to pry any information out of her while driving back here.” Thumb scratching his mustache, Berg leaned back in the chair— and almost hit his head on the wall behind him in the narrow space. “It’s the damnedest thing. Signal shows it’s working fine, but there are strange stretches of silence. Actually more than silence. It’s as if the sound was flatlined by one of our own noise cancellation devices.”

  Confusion chewed his gut. He was sure, as absolutely certain as he could be, that Chuck was trustworthy. Hell, the man had passed the worst test imaginable at the hands of his captor, never breaking.

  What was he up to here?

  Rex scanned the split screen video on the multiple views inside the cruise ship, two dedicated to the outside, where the city was beginning to shut down for the night. The skyline glowed at half power.

  Although the parking lot stayed well lit. Feed showed Chuck walking past security with Jolynn Taylor. Nothing appeared wrong with Chuck…

  But Ms. Taylor? Something was definitely off as she charged two steps ahead.

  What had gone on during those noncomm minutes? Chuck himself had said he feared his edge was gone. For the first time, Rex questioned himself. Straight up, he felt guilty as hell for what had happened to Chuck. While he couldn’t have done anything to prevent it, the kidnapping had happened on his watch as commander. Had he chosen Chuck for this mission just to prove to himself the past was behind them?

  If so, he would have failed Chuck again.

  Rex shot to his feet. His chair skidded back against the wall.

  Without acknowledging the fact that Berg was studying him curiously, Rex made tracks out the door, down the corridor, taking the stairs two at a time. He didn’t question why he was searching for Chuck. He just knew he had to look the young captain in the eyes, a damaged man he’d sent undercover.

  Rex hit the deck by the pool just as Chuck rounded the corner. Alone. Jolynn must have gone to her exclusive suite, obviously nowhere near the more bare-bones accommodations where the staff lived.

  The deck was sparsely populated, most everyone else having turned in for the night. Waves lapped a rhythmic tune. A couple made out by the rail. An older guy lounged in a deck chair sneaking a smoke, his cigar glowing in the night. A cleaning crew mopped the deck in sections while a bartender shut down his station for the night, lining up bottles and emptying ice buckets. The pool glowed with a submerged purple light, giving it an eerie cast.

  It should be safe enough to pretend to ask Chuck for directions since his shirt bore the Fortuna staff logo.

  “Excuse me?” he called out to Chuck, stopping beside a stone fountain with a goddess pouring water into the pool. “Could you help me out with some directions?”

  Chuck’s head snapped up, his eyes sharpening fast. Reassuring to see. He glanced over his shoulder and walked to Rex by the fountain. “Sure, where do you need to go?”

  By now, they stood near enough to each other and the fountain, far away from the stray night owls. “What happened tonight? The sound went out.”

  A generic enough statement if anyone happened to overhear, but Chuck would understand full well what he meant.

  “Sorry, but I don’t have an answer for you. I was out walking with a friend.”

  Walking with Jolynn Taylor. “Nice night for that.”

  “A very wise nun once told me that spending time with a woman is always a good idea.”

  Rex studied him through narrowed eyes, ready to press him for more when a sound from across the deck shut him down. He glanced over his shoulder quickly to find a drunken woman— the contessa— stumbling toward an upper deck with her boy toy. Rex waited for them to pass before lowering his voice.

  “Well, we need to win this one,” he said softly while gesturing to a freestanding map of the ship so it would look as if he were discussing the directions. “And make sure you keep us in the loop next time. I don’t like losing contact.”

  Chuck nodded once, then turned away. His steps were slow and even. Rex watched for any signs of physical stress or strain. Chuck’s body had taken such a beating, his recovery was nothing short of a miracle. But the fact remained, he couldn’t fly any longer due to a burst eardrum. Further, injury to his spine pu
t him at risk for paralysis in ejection seats or parachuting. He had so many pins in his body he would set off metal detectors in airports.

  What the hell had he been thinking insisting he put himself back into the line of fire this way?

  Watching the door close behind Chuck, Rex stuffed his fists into his pockets. Damn. His hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t dodge the truth.

  He hadn’t rushed to see Chuck to make sure the man was alive, to be sure the captain still had his edge.

  Rex was making sure he hadn’t lost his own.

  * * *

  Hugging her knees, she sat in the damp grass at the edge of her father’s garden, peering around a bush sculpted to look like a battle horse. She’d been waiting for her dad, hoping to have some time with him on her own. Since her mother died, all he ever did was work.

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute against the sting. She was twelve years old, for Pete’s sake. Too big to whine like a baby because her dad was too busy for her. Pissed off at him and herself, she pitched a big fat rock at the Venus de Milo fountain a dozen feet away. Her father collected all those stone statues of big-breasted women like his own personal harem. She started to throw another stone at the legendary beauty when—

  A noise startled her. She dropped the stone beside her, and looked again. Anticipation eased the ache in her chest… But it was just Uncle Simon. Rats.

  Uncle Simon was with two men in dark suits, and boy, were they all mad at each other. They were pushing and shoving each other past a circle of iron benches and chairs until they stopped beside the fountain. She pressed her back to the leafy horse’s leg and searched for a way to sneak away without them noticing.

  A shot popped through the air.

  She jerked, her eyes snapping back to the sound. Back to the three men. Back to her uncle. She bit her hand to hold back a scream. Horror, however, bubbled inside her until she could swear it was in her sweat.