The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Page 16

  “No.” She pulled her hands loose from his. “Back in a minute.” She went into the bathroom and found the plastic packet. When she returned to the bedroom, the lights were off except for one by the bed, and Clint reclined on the bed without a stitch of clothing.

  “Oh, my,” she said, a little breathless, echoing his earlier sentiment. But he was a magnificent specimen to behold. She hadn’t gotten the full, panoramic view in that laundry room. With her heart hammering erratically and her palms suddenly moist, she approached slowly, not feeling quite as brazen anymore.

  “Come here, Marissa. Let me make love to you the way it should have been done in the first place.” He stood up and threw the covers back, then held out his arms to her.

  He sounded so sincere, so … so loving, she thought as she went to him without a shred of hesitation. If this wasn’t love, then she didn’t understand the emotion. She went into his arms and they kissed, tenderly, slowly, as if it were the first time.

  The kiss deepened. His tongue found hers and teased it as his hands explored her back. They felt huge, his hands, as if they could crush rocks, but they were gentle as butterfly’s wings as he caressed every sensitive square inch. He moved to her bottom, exploring through the slick panties, then easing one hand beneath the elastic to cup her bare skin. Enchanted with the feel of his caress, she broke the kiss long enough to shimmy out of her panties.

  When she stood up, he grasped her around the waist and pulled her to the bed. Their kissing took on a frantic quality as she tried to touch all of him at the same time—his sinewy thighs, his lightly furred chest, the cast-iron biceps. Even his ears held interest.

  Finally she dared to insinuate her hands between their bodies and grasp his erection. The sense of raw power she felt was intoxicating. She was so revved, she could hardly articulate words, but she tried anyway. “Can I … make you ready?”

  “I think I’ve been ready for hours.” He nearly growled between nibbles on her neck. One of his hands had found the heat between her legs. She shifted, allowing him access, then gasped when he slid one finger inside, immediately finding the most sensitive spot. “Looks like you might be ready too,”

  “Mmm. Oh, yes, um, I meant …” Oh, what was the use? Her tongue wasn’t working, at least not for speech purposes. She fished the condom out from under the pillow where she’d stashed it, and ripped it open with her teeth.

  “Ah.” Apparently understanding had dawned. He took the package from her. “Let me.”

  Gladly, she thought. Her seductress routine would have fallen apart at the seams. She’d never been very good with condoms, the few times she’d tried to wrestle with them.

  Not so Clint. He had himself sheathed in split seconds. Then he was on top of her, pushing against her, seeking the entrance she was more than happy to grant him.

  “You’re so beautiful. Have I told you that?” he said before he slid inside her.

  Yes, he had, but she didn’t mind hearing it again. She closed her eyes and lost herself to the incredible feelings—not only the physical sensations, but the emotions welling up, surrounding her like an aura of pure golden light.

  She hooked her legs around him, letting him push deeper. His mouth found her breast, and her breathing quickened as he teased her nipple with his tongue and teeth. She buried her fingers in his thick, dark hair as the pressure inside her built to an excruciating degree, the pleasure so intense, she thought she would explode.

  And then she did. She was cartwheeling through space, free-falling, complete with wind rushing past her ears and lights flashing behind her eyelids. Sensations rippled from her core through every cell down to her fingers and toes.

  She was almost surprised to find herself still in bed, the echoes of her cries reverberating around the room.

  “Are you quite finished?” Clint asked, kissing her forehead, then her nose, then her chin.

  “Are you?” she countered.

  “Ages ago. I was waiting for you to come back from whatever planet you were on.”

  “Oh.” She’d been so caught up in her own ecstasy, she’d missed his. And, she thought glumly, when would she get another chance?

  He kissed her again. “Don’t look at me that way. Do you have any idea what it does to a man’s ego when he actually makes a woman scream with pleasure?”

  “I honestly don’t know, since I’ve never done that before.”

  He seemed pleased by her answer.

  He withdrew and eased himself down beside her, pulling her against his shoulder. “At a time like this, I wish I could say all the right things.”

  “I’m not expecting any pretty words from you, Clint.”

  “Just the same … do you remember what I said to you in the closet at the Foxhunt? Right before Eddie opened the door?”

  She gave a little huff of laughter as her heart suddenly accelerated. “That was a dying declaration. I won’t hold you to it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m plenty alive now, so you have to believe me when I say I’m crazy for you. I know I’m not the kind of man you would ever want in your life. I know I represent everything you despise, and I’ve put you through hell and threatened you and almost got you killed, so I don’t anticipate this great depth of feeling from you in return. I wanted you to know that I don’t take this lightly. And I’m sorry for whatever pain I’ve caused you.”

  Tears formed in Marissa’s eyes, because she knew he was right, dammit. He wasn’t the man for her. Not that she thought what he did with his life was wrong. He was helping put people like Eddie out of commission, and that had to count for something. But it was the way he lived that she couldn’t abide. She couldn’t survive loving a man who exposed himself to danger day after day.

  At the same time, Clint was dead wrong. She did return his feelings, measure for measure. But it probably wasn’t wise for her to tell him. He had incredible power over her. He could bind her to him with very little effort, and she’d be powerless to walk away.

  She still could walk away. And she wanted that option to remain open.

  The phone rang, startling her out of her reverie. God Almighty, who could be calling them? She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. It wasn’t quite eleven. Had the bust gone down? Were they calling Clint to let him know the outcome?

  Please, she prayed, let everything be okay.

  Clint rolled over and picked up the receiver as adrenaline pumped through his system. “Yeah?”

  “Clint.” It was Neil’s voice. He didn’t even bother to identify himself. “We’ve got a helluva mess here. When we moved in, the people from the plane thought Constantine’s people had turned, and they started shooting. Then all hell broke loose. The plane took off, but it had a leaky fuel tank. Now we’ve got a man down and a hostage situation.”

  Clint said nothing, though his gut roiled. This was every agent’s nightmare, a Waco in the making.

  “Constantine is injured,” Neil continued. “He’s holed up in this barn-type building, and he’s holding a woman hostage. We’re at a standoff.”

  “Can you talk to him?”

  “Yeah, communications are open. But he won’t talk to anyone but you. In person.”

  Clint resisted the urge to say, “I told you so.” He’d known, from the moment he laid eyes on that information in Eddie’s safe, that he should be present at the rendezvous. He’d known it when he argued with Neil earlier that day about taking part in the operation. And he’d known it again a couple of hours earlier, when Marissa asked him to justify his participation in the bust.

  Now he knew why he should’ve been there.

  “The SOB just wants to kill me, you know,” Clint said. He could feel Marissa tense at those words, though she wasn’t even touching him. He reached out and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, but he couldn’t look at her. “Do you know the identity of the woman?”

  “It’s your ex-wife,” Neil said, confirming what Clint had already suspected.

  Hell, she wasn’t a hostage, she w
as a conspirator. She was probably playing along, allowing Eddie to use her as a pawn to manipulate him. But what if she really was in danger? Eddie wasn’t sentimental. Because he’d been sleeping with Rachelle didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill her.

  “If you’d rather not get involved—”

  “Oh, please, Neil,” Clint said with a weary shake of his head. “As if I’d stand by while someone puts a gun to Rachelle’s head. I’m a trained hostage negotiator. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Neil gave him some terse directions on where to meet, then hung up.

  Clint turned to Marissa. She was already sitting up, a pillow hugged protectively against her body. “I couldn’t have planned a better way to ruin things, huh?” he said.

  She didn’t answer, and he didn’t blame her for being mad. He’d promised her he wouldn’t go. She’d made love with him because of that decision. She must feel betrayed.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “I know. You have to save the life of the woman who conspired to have you killed.”

  “That’s right,” he said as he climbed out of bed and went in search of his clothes. He felt suddenly self-righteous. “She’s a human being, and I’ll save her life if I can, regardless of what she’s done. I would do the same for any woman, even if I’d never met her. That’s my job, keeping people alive. That’s what separates me from them, Marissa, from your father and Eddie and even Jimmy. I wish you’d at least try to remember that. You might not care for my methods, but you can’t argue with my motives.”

  She sat silently watching him as he pulled on his clothes. Then, abruptly, she got up and scurried into the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” he called after her.

  “Putting on my clothes. I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re—”

  “Yes, I am,” she said with quiet authority when she came back into the room moments later wearing her old clothes. She located the canvas flats she’d been wearing earlier and stepped into them. “I will not sit here in this hotel room waiting for the phone to ring, to find out whether you’re dead or alive.”

  “But it’s dan—”

  “Dammit, I know it’s dangerous. That’s not stopping you, and it won’t stop me.” She strode over to him until she was face to chest with him, then grabbed the lapels of his open shirt, stood on her toes, and looked up, practically snarling. “I’m going. Is that clear?”

  He nodded. He wouldn’t dream of arguing with her when she was in such a state. She might chew his leg off. Besides, he could always find a safe place to stash her once he got to the scene. Surely one of his coworkers had handcuffs.

  Marissa remained silent during the drive to the mysterious airstrip. She was still in shock that Clint had allowed her to accompany him. For all her bravado, she hadn’t for a minute believed that he would put aside his macho I’m-the-man attitude and let her desires prevail.

  She’d meant business, though. She smiled in the darkness of the car as she remembered how she’d grabbed him by the shirt and shaken him as if she were a dog with a bone twice as big as itself. If he hadn’t let her come, she’d have followed him. She’d have found a way. If he had it in mind to throw himself in front of a bullet or some other fool macho thing, she wanted to be in a position to stop him.

  She’d only recently realized she loved him, and she wasn’t going to lose him that quick.

  “Is your job like this all the time?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “No.” He didn’t elaborate.

  Seeing that his mind was elsewhere, she decided not to bother him. He was probably doing some mental-preparation thing for whatever was to come. He’d said something about hostage negotiating. He might be formulating strategy.

  Clint stopped once to consult a city map, then drove ahead with unerring determination. Soon he turned onto a bumpy dirt road. They were in the middle of nowhere. Marissa found it hard to believe such a desolate area existed so close to Houston.

  “Should be near,” Clint murmured as he turned off the lights. He continued driving, though there was nothing in front of them but pitch blackness.

  “Do you have night vision or something?” she asked.

  “No, but Neil and company do. Infrared goggles, laser sensors, you name it. I want to make sure they see me before one of Eddie’s people. Ah, there.”

  “What?” She hadn’t seen anything.

  “They signaled me with a flashlight. We can go ahead.”

  As they crept forward, Marissa could gradually make out the shape of a car in front of them on the road. Clint pulled up beside it and opened the window. He carried on a murmured conversation with the man in the car, then drove on.

  Marissa still couldn’t see much, but she could sense the tension in the air as Clint drove into a nest of vehicles—police cars, unmarked cars—and something that looked like a tank. An open-air, tentlike structure had been erected behind the shelter of the tank thing. A single electric bulb in the tent was the only light source.

  A tall, stocky woman greeted Clint as he opened the door. “Nichols. The command post is over there.” She pointed to the tent. “McCormick has been practically frothing at the mouth, he’s so anxious to see you.”

  “Is it safe here?” Clint asked. “Are we beyond Eddie’s firepower?”

  “We think so.” The woman gave Marissa a sour look. “Safest place for her would be at the command center with you. Nothing’s coming through that armored truck.”

  Marissa was glad to hear that. She’d been afraid someone would override Clint’s okay and kick her out. They still might, if she didn’t keep a low profile. She tried to be inconspicuous as Clint hustled her to the tent.

  Before he even greeted his boss, he pushed Marissa into a folding chair. “Don’t move, don’t talk,” he admonished her before turning his back and facing Neil. “What’ve we got?”

  Neil pointed to a small video monitor set up on a plank table. “We’ve got an infrared camera on the truck. That’s a view of the warehouse—it’s a converted barn, really.”

  “How many are in there?”

  “He says five others, but we think he’s lying. We’ve got three of his men in custody and one on the way to the hospital. He couldn’t have brought that many with him. We think it’s just him and the—him and Rachelle.”

  “And she’s a hostage?”

  “They’ve come to the window three times, and he’s had a gun to her head each time. We’ve talked to her—she sounds pretty scared, says Eddie’s gone crazy or something.”

  “What kind of firepower do they have?”

  “We think only one handgun. If they had anything more powerful, they’d have tried to use it. We’ve given them plenty of chances.”

  “When do I get to talk to Eddie?” Clint asked.

  “Now. There’s an open line.” Neil pointed to a speakerphone.

  Clint took a deep breath, stretched his arms over his head as if preparing for an Olympic sprint, then jabbed the talk button on the phone. “Yo, Eddie.”

  There was a long silence. Then, “Clint? That you, buddy boy?” Marissa recognized the voice as Eddie’s, although it sounded weak, kind of breathy.

  “None other,” Clint replied.

  “I feel I know you well, after all these months of dodging you.”

  “Put Rachelle on,” Clint said in a no-nonsense voice. Marissa shivered. She’d heard that voice before, directed at her.

  “All in due time.”

  “Put her on now. You’ve got ten seconds, or I give the order to move in and I don’t care who gets hurt.”

  Neil frantically shook his head. Clint held up his finger, a silent signal for his boss to be patient. Marissa understood. Rachelle was the weakest link. Clint’s best chance was to undermine her part in this hostage charade. And that’s what it was—a charade.

  “Now wait a minute, buddy boy—” Eddie began.

  “Ten,” Clint said calmly. “Nine.”

  “Okay, okay.
Here she is.”

  Another pause, then, “Clint?” A female voice. “Oh, Clint, he’s gonna kill me. Please, please, baby, do something. Do what he asks. Bring him a doctor. He’s bleedin’ like crazy.”

  “He’ll get the finest medical care tax money can buy if he just surrenders,” Clint said calmly. “You tell him that.”

  Marissa bit her nails. How could Clint remain so cool?

  “He doesn’t listen to me, baby.”

  Clint hit the mute button. “Yeah, I’ll just bet.”

  “There’s a doctor here,” Neil said. “Maybe he could go in and give Eddie something to knock him out.”

  Clint shook his head. “Rachelle would turn the gun on him the moment anything went wrong.”

  Neil appeared confused. “What are you saying?”

  “Rachelle isn’t a hostage. She’s acting.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’d stake my life on it. If I can keep talking to her, I can get her to surrender. I know every one of her hot buttons.”

  Marissa did her best to ignore the implications of that statement.

  He punched the talk button again. “Rachelle?”

  “That’s enough chitchat with your sweetie.” Eddie was back, still sounding not quite like himself. Marissa wondered how badly he was injured. If they waited long enough, he might pass out from loss of blood.

  “Why’d you want to talk to me, specifically?” Clint asked.

  “I thought we could work out a little trade—you for the babe.”

  Clint actually laughed. “What good would that do you? It’s not as if you’d get out of here alive with any hostage, certainly not me. Anyway, you think I’d trade my life for Rachelle’s? Dream on. She’s not worth it to me. You can kill her for all I care.”

  “What?” Neil screamed.

  Clint gave his boss a warning look, as if to say, I know what I’m doing. “Before you kill her, though,” he continued to Eddie, “you ought to know that there are a dozen SWAT team sharpshooters aiming their rifles at that flimsy little shack you’re in. If we hear even the slightest noise that might be a gun firing from your direction, my boss—and he’s standing right here, nodding—will give the order to open fire.”