Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
San Diego
They came up out of the condo’s garage in single file. One, two, three. Mike first, then Sam and Nicole, then Harry and Ellen. They turned right and followed the ocean for a couple of miles, then turned inland over a beautiful bridge.
They all drove at exactly forty miles an hour and kept the exact same distance from each other.
It took Ellen a while to realize what this was. A convoy.
She turned her head and looked blindly out at the passing scenery. This was an unusually beautiful part of San Diego but she barely noticed what she was seeing.
This then, was the life of Harry, of Sam and Nicole and of Mike. Reduced to moving in a convoy as if through Baghdad during the war years, through incredibly hostile terrain.
Because of her.
Roddy, dear, sweet Roddy, was dead.
Because of her.
“Hey.” Harry’s deep voice broke the silence. He picked up her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the back and returned her hand to her lap, all the while staring at the road up ahead. “It’s not your fault.”
“Are you a mind reader, now?” Ellen’s voice was froggy and she cleared it.
“Don’t have to be a mind reader to know what you were thinking. It was all over your face.”
She huffed out a little laugh. He hadn’t looked at her once since they’d come up out of the garage, so clearly he had 360° vision. It wouldn’t surprise her, he seemed to be Superman. He’d prevailed over three of Gerald’s men.
He continued staring straight ahead. “There was nothing you could do for your agent. And it had nothing to do with you. Montez is a bad guy and your agent was caught right in the middle of his machinations. Just bad luck, like being run over by a truck. You can’t beat yourself up over it, it won’t do you any good and above all, it won’t do him any good.
The only person to profit would be that fu—would be Gerald, because you’ll be a little less alert. ”
He was right, of course he was right.
“Besides, you’ve got other things to think about. Like my tax return. We’re all going to dump tons of pieces of paper on you and man, you’re going to regret your offer.”
No, she wouldn’t. She was actually looking forward to it. “Nicole comes first.”
He dipped his head briefly, and a touch of a smile crossed his face. “Of course. Ladies first.”
“No, not because ladies come first but because she figured out what happened in Kabul. That deserves a reward.”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “I can’t believe she’s better at some types of computer research than I am.”
Ellen laughed. She laughed. When was the last time she laughed? Over a year ago, surely. It felt odd, and came out a little rusty, but it was definitely a laugh.
He slanted her a glance. “Sounds good, you laughing.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, surprised at herself. It felt good, too. With all her troubles, and she had a mountain of them, she felt her spirits rise.
Her situation in general sucked, and she had no future to speak of, but right this second, life was good.
She was very safe right now, in a vehicle that she was sure was armoured, with Harry at the wheel.
Gentle, sexy Harry, who was good with violence.
He wielded it like a surgeon wields a scalpel, for her, not against her.
In the vehicles in front of her were three people who were fast becoming her friends, two of them warriors.
Amazingly, all of them had gathered her into their little circle of protection and friendship. Crazily enough, though she was in terrible trouble, she’d never felt so safe. So safe, so warm, so protected.
Don’t get used to it, she warned herself.
Because it would be easy to just sink into it, like into a warm bath, and never get out.
There would be a deadline to all of this, no doubt.
Harry and Sam and Mike would be working to come up with a plan for her.
A place to go, documents to fit into a new life that they’d conjure up out of thin air.
They’d do a better job of it than she could.
Would she have a say in what life they chose for her?
Music was out, of course. At the thought, a heavy lump of lead settled into her chest. No more music, no more singing, not even amateur singing in a choir.
Her voice was too well known by now. Somehow Gerald must have traced her back through her music, so music was out.
Accountancy, too, of course. Even she knew you don’t take up your old profession when on the run.
She didn’t want to waitress any more. It had been fun for a while but it was hard drudgery and for better or worse, she had lots of money stashed away, so she didn’t have to do it.
Maybe a job in a bookstore? She liked reading.
Or, or…her mind turned blank when Harry took her hand again, raised it to his mouth.
This time the kiss wasn’t reassuring, it was pure sex.
She felt his warm lips, the slight bite of beard even though he’d shaved.
His mouth lingered, a touch of tongue and she suddenly flashed on last night.
How his beard had scraped her shoulder as he kissed and lightly bit his way down to her breast.
He’d stopped moving in her, hot and hard and heavy inside her, while he kissed his way to her breast. Then he’d lifted his head, fierce golden gaze locked to her eyes. Sliding his hips forward to be more deeply into her.
Oh God, just remembering made heat blossom all through her body.
Harry chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m red, aren’t I?” Her voice was resigned.
“Like a stoplight, honey.” The little convoy took a corner and she looked blindly out the window, trying to cool off a little. His voice roughened.
“I don’t blush but—" He took her hand and put it over his groin. Right over the hot steel column in his pants. It was a shocking thing to do. Probably she should protest, but there wasn’t any blood in her head to think, and all the air had left her lungs. “I’m thinking of the same thing you are.”
He pressed his hand down hard over hers and she gasped as she felt his penis jump, lengthening a little.
It had done exactly the same thing last night when she’d nipped him under his ear.
It hadn’t been planned, she hadn’t thought it out.
It had been instinct, an urgent curiosity to find out what he tasted like, and whether he liked being lightly bit as much as she did.
The answer had been yes. Hell yes.
She’d felt the pulse of new blood flooding into his penis buried deep inside her and her vagina had clenched tightly. Thinking of it, remembering it, her hand instinctively tightened around him and the breath exploded out of his body.
“God.” The word came out rough. His jaws were clenched, muscles rippling up to his temples. She’d have said he was in pain if it weren’t for the fact that his hand tightened over hers to keep it right where it was.
His eyes quartered the street. “We’re going to be at the Morrison Building in about four minutes. Where am I going to go with this?” His hand clenched around hers and his penis surged again against the palm of her hand.
Blood suffused her face, her hands trembled. The little convoy was slowing down, soon they’d be parking and the two of them would have to emerge from this SUV with her burning face and his erection.
“We have to think of something that will cool us down,” she gasped. Something as big and as cold as Antarctica, the way she was feeling.
Harry lifted his hand from hers and she released him.
They drove down into the gloom of the building’s underground garage, the bright sunlight abruptly gone as if a switch had been thrown.
“Not hard,” Harry said, parking neatly beside Sam and Nicole’s vehicle. “Just think of Gerald Montez. That’s enough.”
Turned out that Nicole’s office was just across the corridor from her husband’s. Pretty convenient.
She had elaborate security, involving a palm print and a keypad code. The only thing missing was the retina scan. When her door clicked open like that of a bank vault, Nicole put her hand to Ellen’s back and urged her inside. Nicole turned back to the three men.
“Ellen’s spending the day with me.” Harry opened his mouth and she shook her finger at him. “With me. And I don’t want to hear any discussion about it.”
Harry looked at Sam, who made a strangled noise in his throat. It was clear who called the shots in that family. Mike just looked amused.
Nicole leaned forward a little. “Harry, you know perfectly well that Sam made sure my office is as secure as yours and Sam watches who comes in and out of my office on his monitor anyway, don’t you Sam?”
Sam looked at the floor and had the grace to look a little bit abashed. It was hard to tell, though, on that rough face. He was even worse than Harry at showing emotion.
“Ellen is going to be much more comfortable spending the day with me, aren’t you, dear?” Nicole turned to her.
Walking around in an office of men she barely knew, except for one who turned her on so powerfully she’d have to avoid him as much as possible, or staying with Nicole, cool, calm, friendly Nicole. There was only one possible answer. “Ah. Yes.”
“This is your way to ensure that she looks at your books before she looks at ours,” Harry said sourly.
“Absolutely. So embrace the suck, as you military types say.” Nicole smiled as she closed the door in their faces. She leaned her back against it and blew out a little breath. “Now. We’ve got rid of them, so we can relax.”
She waved a graceful hand at the small office. “Welcome to my little lair. You work on that laptop over there and I’ll work at the desktop. Around eleven one of Sam’s men will go downstairs and get a skinny latte decaf for me and you’d like—what?”
“Cinnamon chai,” Ellen smiled.
“Great.” Nicole pressed a button on a fancy intercom system, murmured Cinnamon chai and hung her jacket up on a brass clothes tree.
Nicole went to a beautiful antique console under the window, brought out two big boxes and placed them on the table next to the laptop. She opened the flaps, looked inside and winced.