Burn (Page 67)

As he watched and listened, he glanced at Jenner now and again. She was trying to get comfortable in the chair, where she was presently cuffed, but it wasn’t easy. Tough shit. He’d tried letting her go to bed unrestrained – at least until he turned in himself – thinking he could watch her and do his job, but damned if she hadn’t been up and down, flitting around in the bathroom, going to the parlor for a book that had obligated him to stop what he was doing and follow her. She’d read for maybe five minutes, then she’d been up again, rearranging the clothes in the closet and whatever the hell else she could do to take his attention from the job at hand. Finally he’d grabbed her, pushed her skinny little ass in the chair, and cuffed her to it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.

Not that she wasn’t distracting enough already.

She’d looked good enough to eat – in both senses of the word – tonight, in a pink dress with sparkles all over it, held up by two tiny straps that he could have snapped with one finger. That’s what he’d kept thinking about: how easy it would be to break them and peel the top down to bare those pert little breasts that kept tormenting him from under the skimpy tanks she wore as pajama tops.

Last night had been a mistake. Throwing her down and landing on top of her had been a miscalculation, a moment when sheer instinct had overridden cool intellect. His heart had almost stopped when her legs parted, and his erection had pressed hard against the soft heat of her groin. If she hadn’t had her pajamas on, he’d have been inside her without thinking twice, and that was the worst part of it, that he wouldn’t have thought twice, or even once.

Since then, he could barely drag his mind away from the subject. He’d realized from the beginning that she had the ability to get to him, on a purely physical level, like nothing he’d ever experienced before, but there was a big, deep trench between them that he couldn’t let himself cross. The psychology of their situation meant that she had no power, so any intimacy between them smacked, at best, of coercion. She’d recognized it, too, or she wouldn’t have said that about the Stockholm syndrome. He wasn’t a rapist, full stop. There was no wiggle room on this.

But, God, he wanted her under him. He wanted to see her naked, he wanted her to kiss him the way she had the first night, when she’d been so hot and angry she’d almost set his shorts on fire. The intensity of the way he wanted her made him feel like a caveman, intent on nothing else except grabbing her ass and holding her still for that first heart-stopping stroke of his penis into the hot clasp of her body.

Wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – let himself do it.

On the laptop screen, Larkin turned on his cell phone and walked toward the balcony. Cael jerked his mind away from Jenner and focused on the task at hand. Watching Larkin, he leaned forward and tensed, said a little prayer. If Larkin went outside they’d be lucky to catch every other word. The wind, combined with the distance from the mike, would play hell with their reception. Fortunately, Larkin didn’t go through the doors but stood there, punching buttons; then he lifted his head to stare into the darkness through the glass door.

What he wouldn’t give to have a bug on that cell phone so he could hear both sides of the conversation, Cael thought. But they couldn’t even capture the call by other means, because Larkin’s phone was encrypted just like theirs were. He made a note of the time. Maybe his contacts would at least be able to get the number Larkin had dialed, if Faith couldn’t pull it herself.

"I call you on my schedule, not yours," Larkin said coldly, into the phone. "I have the information you need to make the payment." He rattled off a long number from memory, probably a bank account and routing number.

After that, he was silent for a few moments. Who was on the other end of the line? Just a business associate, or the contact they’d been searching for?

"Hilo, as arranged," Larkin said carefully, as if he didn’t trust the phone’s encryption and being cautious about offering too many details. "Don’t be hasty. All things in good time." He listened awhile longer, then ended the call without saying good-bye. Did that mean he considered himself superior to the person he’d been talking to, or had the other person disconnected first?

Larkin turned off the cell phone and set it aside. He removed his tie as he walked toward the bedroom, turning off lights as he went. As he walked into the bedroom, the camera and transmitter Cael had threaded into the room caught the action. The angle was from the floor, pointed up.

Thank God Larkin didn’t sleep naked.

Cael watched as Larkin rubbed his temples, frowning deeply before swearing for no apparent reason. Was he sick? Stressed? Betraying your country should give a man a headache. To Cael’s way of thinking, the fact that Larkin was a naturalized citizen made treason even more heinous, because he wasn’t a citizen by accident of birth, he’d actively chosen to become one, he’d sworn an oath to the country.

Larkin went into the bathroom, where, thankfully, Cael couldn’t see him, though the earbuds did pick up the sounds of teeth being brushed and the toilet being flushed. He came out of the bathroom and went into the closet, where he changed clothes and emerged wearing gray silk pajamas that shimmered in the lamplight. Then he got into bed and turned out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

When all had been silent for a few minutes, Cael removed the earbuds. Any sound would be recorded, in case something unexpected happened during the night, but so far once Larkin went to bed he stayed there until morning.

Cael turned toward Jenner. "You might as well get some sleep. I have some phone calls to make."

She gave him a look that should have drawn blood. "You think I can sleep in this chair?"

"I gave you a chance to sleep in the bed while I worked," he pointed out. "But, no, you had to jump around the room like a Chihuahua on speed. Up and down, here and there, you weren’t still for two minutes. It’s your own fault you’re cuffed to the chair."