Out of Sight Page 27

  "Hmmm." She'd never had a lover who talked during sex before. It made her hotter to know he cared, in the moment at least, what she liked and how she liked it. "Harder."

  "Like this?"

  "Harder… Mor—Yes.Yes. Yes!"

  He was squishing her against the wall, his chest just as hard as the mosaic at her back. She was close, so close to the precipice… she felt hot, shivery, feverish. Even her hair follicles participated.

  His stroke was steady and rapid, matching her heartbeats.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  "Okay?" he asked in a low, tight voice.

  She closed her eyes, concentrating on the slow, inextricable climb. "Pretty. Damn. Fabulous. You?"

  He chuckled, and the sensation of his pleasure shimmered through her, joining forces with all the other sensations to merge into an overwhelming whole.

  He kissed her again. Deep, carnal, a mirror image of what their bodies were doing. Her muscles went taut, her back arched, and she cried out his name in the overwhelming force of her pleasure. Her release came like a supernova.

  When it finally faded after several minutes she was surprised to find them still upright, the water continuing to cascade over them. Kane was still hard inside her.

  He nuzzled her throat with his open mouth, and she found the skin there now even more sensitive to his touch. She wanted to purr.

  "How was that for madam?" he asked, nibbling along her jaw.

  "Satisfactory," she said in a snooty tone as she toyed with the swirls of hair on his chest. "A little more practice and madam thinks you'd make a fine—"

  "Fuck!" Kane grabbed AJ's upper arms, disengaged, and spun her around, slamming her hard against the back wall behind him.

  Not just hard, violently.

  Her feet slipped and she staggered, off balance on the wet floor, as her brain tried to make sense of the lightning change from lover to attacker. Still in a sexual haze, she blinked, trying to bring him into focus while at the same time trying to find her footing on the slick floor. "Jesus God, Kane. What the hell do yo—"

  The half-closed bathroom door slammed open, bouncing off the marble wall. Once. Twice.

  This time AJ didn't have to fake a shriek. It burst from her lungs involuntarily as four men exploded into the bathroom.

  She tried to assimilate the images through the runnels on the glass, attempting to view the entire picture from her position half hidden by Kane's large body. The shadowy man in front wavered as he raised his weapon in slo-mo.

  "Nooooo—" The glass walls of the shower stall imploded in a spray of glass, water, and bright red blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  « ^ »

  Two men dragged AJ, buck-naked and dripping wet, kicking and screaming bloody murder, down the hallway. Another, two followed closely behind.

  She didn't give a good damn about the being naked part. She didn't even care about the four gorillas "escorting" her down the palatial corridor. How could she care about any of this when all she kept seeing, over and over, and over again, was blood.

  Kane's blood.

  She closed her eyes and saw it again, blossoming in the air like some grotesque, red feather fan. And oh, God, despite her violent struggles she could feel the hot iciness of blood running down her arms. Dribbling down her bare legs. She felt it slick on her hands. And between her toes. On her skin.

  Oh, God, Kane.

  AJ gave herself a mental shake. She recognized she was in shock. And she was scared. Really scared. And angry. But, she'd better snap the hell out of it. All of it. Now.

  Didn't matter that she was naked as the day she was born, an armed goon on each arm, the two behind her getting a butt's-eye view to China as she heaved and struggled in their hold.

  Get a grip, she told herself firmly. Just. Get. A. Damn. Grip.

  Think calmly and rationally.

  Acting hysterical was one thing, being hysterical another.

  What would Kane do?

  His eyes wouldn't be filling with tears of rage, that was for damn sure. He'd already be trying to figure out a plan to get to her. He wouldn't be remembering, he'd be thinking. Fine. She'd think. She'd plan. Then she'd kill these bastards and find Kane.

  She tried to wipe her face on her bare shoulder. One of the men jerked her along so hard she almost bit herself. She let out an infuriated shriek and kicked out. Ineffectual with bare feet. Not to mention it screwed with her balance, and if they hadn't been holding her up she would have fallen.

  The man laughed, which instead of pissing her off, calmed her as effectively as a slap.

  The hallway was dimly lit. Emergency lighting only. And sweltering hot, yet she shivered as she stopped struggling. The only effect it had on her captors was that their grip on her tightened—in preparation, she supposed, for her to bolt.

  But she didn't make a move. Wasn't time yet. When it was, she'd have to make it count. Eventually they'd let her go, and when they did, she'd have to focus and be ready to take action.

  Was Kane alive? Would she live long enough herself to know?

  If they didn't show up to meet Walsh later, would he come looking for them? In time? She dared not even think about the cavalry getting there to save the day. When she thought about it, she wanted to laugh at the irony.

  She was the cavalry.

  If Kane wasn't dead—please, God, Kane wasn't dead—then he was seriously injured. Walsh and his people were on the outside. Reinforcements weren't coming. Not yet, anyway.

  As they marched her along, AJ checked for hiding places, for exits, for anything she might use as a weapon.

  A half-round table held a huge urn of fresh, slightly wilted flowers and palm fronds. The metal urn was at least four feet high and probably weighed upwards of two hundred pounds. Unless she could get one of the guys to stand still directly beneath it, it wasn't going to do her much good. A discreetly placed wall fire extinguisher had been removed. But the standing ashtray container looked nice and solid…

  They crossed a marble floor and the elevator banks. Two easy chairs, a sarcophagus, more heavy urns, more wilted flowers. Her bare feet hit carpet again. Clearly they were heading way the hell and gone to the other end of the building. Who else was on this floor? Just them and Raazaq's people?

  Despite the intentional racket she'd made, and she'd shrieked and fought like a madwoman, no one had popped their heads out of a door to see what was going on, So much for chivalry. To hell with curiosity. She was on her own.

  At the end of the interminably long corridor, the apes pushed open the double doors to an opulent suite and shoved her inside. Fazur Raazaq. No surprise.

  Her guards strong-armed her across the boldly patterned carpet to stand in front of their boss, who lounged on one of the leather sofas like a sultan. There were five other men, including the redheaded kid, in the room, staring at her like they'd never seen a naked woman covered in blood before, bringing the total their count to nine. Ten—including Raazaq—to one.

  Not easy, but do-able, AJ thought, her brain going a mile a minute. She'd done that training exercise with fifteen guys. Managed to take out nine of them before they killed her. She'd take this much more seriously.

  The men wore what appeared to be the uniform du jour. Black pants, white shirt, sweat, and a Ruger in a brown leather shoulder holster.

  She was way underdressed.

  Lifting her chin and ignoring his men, AJ gave Raazaq a narrowed-eyed glare. "Hello, Fazur," she said coolly. "This is a surprise. But I really don't think we know each other well enough for me to be standing in front of you naked."

  She did nothing to cover herself. There was no point. They'd all seen everything there was to see. Not that they weren't still looking, God only knew. As a distraction to the enemy, being dragged in naked was pretty effective. They should include nudity in the T-FLAC handbook.

  She stood relaxed, hands at her sides. Like the Emperor, AJ pretended she was fully clothed and armed. She
had to pretend very hard.

  While none of the men made any overt move—after all, their boss was sitting right there—six out of nine men were looking at her as though she was the last steak on a starving planet. The thought sent a shudder of revulsion through her.

  She couldn't have been more vulnerable if she'd tried.

  The redheaded kid who'd felt her up earlier stood at half-assed attention beside the sofa where Raazaq lounged. Scarlet-faced, but unable to avert his gaze from her boobs, he stepped behind the sofa. Blushing even harder when he caught her glancing at him. AJ didn't bother making eye contact with the others, but she kept them in her peripheral vision.

  Raazaq's suite was about forty by sixty, filled with fine furniture and authentic-looking knickknacks. Behind the grouping of three white leather sofas and various coffee and side tables, a teak dining room table, seating for at least twelve, stood in front of a bank of windows facing the front of the hotel.

  There were dozens of objects AJ could use as weapons, if given half a chance. However, she was more interested in the weapons Raazaq's men carried.

  Raazaq snapped his fingers twice to get her attention. Both arms spread on the back of the sofa where he sat, he watched her from opaque, black eyes when AJ brought him back into focus. He wore a black suit, despite the sweltering heat in the room, and a white shirt and old school tie.

  He was the only man in the room not sweating.

  "What are you doing here, Miss Cooper?" Raazaq's tone was hard and uncompromising. He wasn't trying to charm her now.

  "Why don't you ask your trained gorillas? They dragged me here," she snapped. "How dare you send these Neanderthals to break into my room? They killed Kane! Do you know that? They killed him. In cold blood." Fear into anger. Fear into anger. "They shot him right in front of me! And to add insult to injury, they abducted me!" Her voice rose. "How dare you!"

  Raazaq rose from his relaxed position on the sofa, nodded to the two men holding her. They instantly released her. She didn't step back, but oh, God, she wanted to. She looked the monster straight in the eye as he circled the coffee table and came to stand in front of her. The acrid-sweet smell of his cologne made her eyes smart. And the glitter of emptiness in his made her bones want to shrink. It took everything in her to stand still and not attempt to cover herself.

  "I repeat," Raazaq said flatly, "what are you and your boss doing here. Miss Cooper?"

  AJ rubbed her upper arms where his men's fingers had dug into her flesh and gave the terrorist a cold and haughty look. "I refuse to have a conversation with you while I'm standing here with no clothes on."

  "I repeat—"

  "And I repeat—"

  Raazaq backhanded her across the face. AJ gasped involuntarily as her head whipped to one side. Pain blasted through her brain as stars burst in front of her eyes. She was fortunate he hadn't used his fist. Hand to her stinging cheek, AJ staggered from the force of the blow.

  Son of a bitch.

  Outrage poured through her and AJ came within a heartbeat of head-butting the little bastard, then beating the crap out of him. Stay in character, losing your temper now could lose you the war. Damn it, if Kane was alive, then she was going to do whatever she had to to get to him.

  But first she'd do the job she'd been dispatched to Egypt to accomplish.

  She lifted her head and touched her hot cheek. "Do you have any idea how much my face is worth?"

  "Answer the question."

  "Our car broke down," she told him, keeping eye contact. "We walked."

  "Did you follow me here?"

  AJ rolled her eyes and gave a mocking laugh. "My God, you're conceited. We only shared one dinner together, Fazur. I don't usually risk my life to see a man a second time. I don't have to. Men walk across blazing deserts for me, honey. Not the other way around. So get over yourself. And while you're doing that, get me something to wear."

  His black eyes ran slowly down the length of her. The small hairs on the back of AJ's neck prickled and her heart thudded in slow, heavy beats that made her feel as though each one were her last.

  "Is any of that your blood?" he asked, his tone cool. He was standing too close for comfort. AJ could feel the heat of his body, and smell his breath. Sen-Sen. His dark eyes glittered almost feverishly.

  AJ thought of the little girls Raazaq had killed last month. Of the hundreds and thousands of people whose lives he'd irreparably altered by his acts of terror over the years. And now the son of a bitch had something bigger, more terrifying planned.

  Not this time. She was here to stop him, and stop him she would. Taking him down was going to be her pleasure.

  "No. I just explained that to you," she said flatly. "It's Kane's. Your men shot him, remember? My God, I knew when I took this assignment that I was coming to a somewhat violent area of the world, but I never imagined I would witness a killing."

  She studied him closely and noted the tiny smallpox scar right between his thick black brows. A good place to aim for, AJ decided.

  "Yes, they shot him. Would you like to know why?"

  "I'll guess because you told them to."

  "I did. You really believe the man you work for was a photographer?"

  "Of course he is. I've been standing in front of his camera for weeks. His photos are published in oodles of magazines. Surely even you have seen his work. I can't believe you had him murdered." She blinked, hoping she appeared shocked. In reality, she was battling the sting of impending tears. "What do you think he is?"

  "Black ops."

  "Black… ops? You mean, like a spy?" She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. All you have to do is open a National Geographic for the answer to that. My God, you are paranoid, aren't you? Here's a news flash, Romeo. The second I can, I'm going to report you to the local authorities and have you locked up, where you belong."

  He laughed lightly. It was a charming laugh. For a psychopath. "My dear Miss Cooper, I am the authorities. In less than four hours I will rule the world. I'm putting myself where I belong."

  A psycho with a mission. "W-what do you mean?"

  "Do you know who is in the hotel right now?"

  Other than my President and the Queen of England? "Who?"

  Raazaq rattled off the terrifyingly long list. "They are attending a secret peace summit here." He shrugged. "Or so they believe. Right now I hold their fate in my hands." He cupped his long-fingered hands together, and smiled.

  The smile froze AJ's marrow. Christ. "Psycho" didn't even come close to describing this guy.

  She forced a short laugh. "Right. Rule the world Monday, pick up dry cleaning Tuesday…"She shook her head mockingly. "If you're gonna rule the world, think you could find me a towel first?"

  She wished he'd step back at least a pace. He was right inside her comfort zone, and being naked and on display was starting to fray her nerves. "Unless you plan to haul the Queen and the President up here naked as well? Somehow I can't imagine Her Majesty into kink."

  Raazaq studied her narrowed-eyed. Clearly he was damn proud of his plan and wanted her to be suitably impressed. "My hotel is spectacular enough to house presidents and queens, is it not? They were all delighted to accept the invitation to see my spectacular pyramid and resolve world peace at the same time. The fools." He laughed slyly. "I am a master puppeteer, manipulating people's lives with a flick of my hand. Did you not wonder why your car broke down?"

  She shrugged. "I don't care why."

  "Ah, but you should care. Because it is merely a sample of what I have at my disposal." Raazaq smiled that meaningless smile again. "With a push of a button, low level energy bursts were scattered throughout the region, bringing everything to a standstill."

  When she didn't respond with awe and wonder, he sighed. "We are now as my people were centuries ago. And only I can bring the modern world back. I have many electrical engineers, scientists, and technology specialists at my behest. I wanted them to create a jamming device. One claimed it could not be done. I had his tongue cut out
and fed it to him in large chunks until he choked to death." Raazaq paused long enough to blow out a dismissive breath.

  "The others began working diligently to create such a device. I now have the ability to shut down anything electrical, mechanical… anything with moving parts. I did just that at precisely eighteen minutes past two Sunday morning."

  "So you rule the world by stopping time with your little freeze ray. How lovely for you." She cocked her head and tapped her bare toes against the carpet impatiently. "A new toy. Has anyone ever suggested you get some counseling? Honestly, why would you want to stop cars from moving? You like walking in the desert? I want to wash and get some clothes on. Then I'm going to the authorities. I'm an American. You can't hold me here."

  He frowned. Slightly. His forehead didn't so much as twitch. Vain son of a bitch must've had Botox.

  "Don't you want to know why I wield such power?" he asked arrogantly.

  "If I say yes, will it get me the hell out of here?" Hell, yes, I want to know. Brag away. Tell me so I can strategize and figure out how to stop you. "I'm sure you're just dying to tell me."

  "Are you aware that Russia is years ahead of your puny U.S. in chemical warfare agents? No, I see that you aren't. The arms-control treaties were nothing but a joke. For twenty-five years, thirty thousand scientists, engineers, and technicians—the top scientific talent in what was then the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—created qualitatively new families of chemical and biological agents. Agents that are different from, and considerably more sophisticated than, mere nerve agents."

  "If you say so. Kinda hard to believe that a country whose people can barely find work, or the money to feed their families, is wasting time and funds to make chemicals."

  "To be sold to the highest bidder. That kind of money goes a long way to alleviate hunger. I couldn't let twenty-five years of excellent research by the world's most eminent scientists , go to waste." He smirked, and AJ noticed the pulse in his throat throbbed harder.

  He was getting more and more excited. More careless?