Burn (Page 92)

He thrust hard and deep, no finesse, just a raw drive to climax. The power and heft of him pushed her over the edge almost before she realized she was there. She came hard, clenching around him, and with a muffled curse he came, too, his almost savage rhythm changing to something slower and deeper as he rode the crest.

The silence in the bedroom after was broken only by the gasps of their breathing, as if they’d both run a marathon. Cael pulled out of her and collapsed beside her, his body gleaming with sweat. Jenner felt as if her entire body were throbbing from the force of her heartbeats. That hadn’t been like anything she’d experienced before. It hadn’t been amazing, or great, or any of the other adjectives she’d heard used to describe sex. It had been powerful and primal, stripped down to the simplest form – no polish, no technique, though she was certain he had them. He had fucked her. He had mated her.

Until now, until this final step, she would still have been able to step back, but not now. This had gone too far. A man didn’t make love to a woman like that and walk away unscathed.

Panting, she lifted her head and met his gaze, brilliant blue under narrowed lids, his expression both hard and extremely satisfied with himself. Then she looked at the bedside table, estimating the number of condoms. Looking back at him she said, "You’re in big trouble now, cowboy."

"You think so?" he asked, reaching out for a fresh condom. "Brace yourself; you’re in for a rough night. We’ll count coup in the morning."

*  *  *

LARKIN COULDN’T SLEEP. He got out of bed and paced the suite, feeling as if ants were crawling on him. Something was wrong. Something was out of kilter, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Finally he realized what it was, and went to the suite’s main door to jerk it open and stick his head into the hallway. The guard on duty, Johnson, straightened with a jerk. "Is anything wrong, Mr. Larkin?"

Larkin glared at him. "You can go," he said sharply. Johnson looked surprised. "But Mr. Larkin, I thought …" "Don’t think," Frank said. "You might hurt yourself." He hadn’t been thinking clearly himself, apparently. While the suite was more secure if there was a man at the door, and he worried less about the eyes he sometimes felt on him, it would also be harder to find the privacy he needed when the time came for him to set the timers on the bombs. These yahoos thought all the bombs would be detonated by manual triggers, but that wasn’t the case. The bombs they’d planted belowdeck, in places he couldn’t access without arousing suspicion, were operated by the trigger in his possession. The incendiary bombs on the public decks were on a timer, which he would set himself, early in the morning of his last day on this earth.

The morons also thought the triggers they had in their possession were operational, but they were merely toys. He had the single working trigger, and he’d use it at the proper time, well before they were expecting it. If there was a guard on his door at all times, how would he get away to set those timers? He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he’d ordered Mills to set up the constant watch. It was the tumor, the damned cancer that had stolen his ability to reason.

Johnson left and Larkin closed the door, reveling in the seclusion that had become his life. He trusted no one. He needed no one. And that was a good thing, because he had no one.

*  *  *

THE NEXT MORNING, Cael watched, narrow-eyed, as Jenner got dressed. The night between hadn’t eased the stress of being around her. He was beginning to feel a real sense of terror that this particular stress would never ease. They’d done normal things this morning: showering, eating breakfast, and still all he could think about was getting back inside her. After the night they’d spent, logically he should be hours, maybe even days, from being ready for sex again. She was trying to kill him. Slowly, painfully. He’d rather be shot; it would hurt less.

"What the hell are you wearing?"

Jenner glanced down. "It’s just a sundress."

That was like saying they were "just breasts." The thin fabric of her blue sundress draped over her like a second skin; the skirt was knee length, showing off fine legs. Even her feet, in another pair of those ridiculous sandals, were sexy as hell.

Yep, she was trying to kill him.

They were going ashore again today, to Kauai this time. Tiffany was joining them, since she was single and Tiff and Jenner were new best buds. The rest of the bunch would keep an eye on Larkin, all four involved with the surveillance if their subject stayed onboard, which seemed to be his preference since the Hilo meeting, Faith and Ryan tailing him if he decided to go ashore.

After today, there would be only one more day of splitting up his team to watch Larkin. Tomorrow night they’d be back at sea. Cael was more comfortable with that scenario. Once they were at sea, Larkin wasn’t going anywhere.

He’d decided to stick with the arranged tour for this excursion. At this point, it was a good idea to stay in a crowd, and keep Jenner out of bikinis before he fucked himself to death. What was it about her? It definitely wasn’t her curves, because she didn’t have that many. She had a smart mouth. She was diabolical. Logically, his intense reaction to her shouldn’t be happening.

Unfortunately Little Cael didn’t function on, or even recognize, logic.

*  *  *

DEAN ASKED TUCKER and Johnson to meet with him privately, in the water treatment facility where they could be certain not to be disturbed. In a narrow corridor between two separate series of twisting pipes, they could be assured of privacy.

Asker and Zadian were also in on the robbery, but Dean had known Tucker and Johnson for years, and he trusted them to do as they were told. It was no mistake that they’d been given two of the three triggers for safekeeping. He had the other.