JAMMER WENT RED-HOT inside. He almost lost control and leaped across the desk to pummel Fuentes. But he tamped the urge down. Eduardo wouldn’t ever touch Callie.
“You are welcome to her,” Jammer said, “once this buy is over and I am done with her.”
Eduardo chuckled. “I now have even more to look forward to.”
Jammer made sure that he shut the door in an easy and controlled way. He stalked down the hall and met up with a guard, who took him to his room.
He went inside, but Callie wasn’t there. Then he saw the open French doors and thought he caught voices. He made his way to the balcony, where he found her.
Callie turned. “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”
Jammer looked around. “Were you talking to someone out here?”
“No. How did it go?”
“Eduardo wants to make you his love slave.”
“Like hell he does. He even tries and I’ll make him a soprano. Then I’ll really get mean.”
Jammer chuckled, releasing the last of the tension in his body. He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her to hold her tight. She slipped her arms around his neck. “Everything will work out just fine,” Jammer said into her sweet-smelling hair.
Deep down he knew that it wouldn’t be fine. He would nab Fuentes and Callie would go back to Watchdog with the satisfaction that she had helped put away a dangerous and ruthless drug lord. But the fact that they couldn’t be together weighed heavily on him. He knew it had to be done, but every time he tried to put distance between them, they became closer than ever.
“Your indifference out there when Fuentes was ogling me…That was an act, right?”
He hugged her tighter. “Of course. I don’t want him to sense how much you mean to me.”
“I knew that, but I just needed to hear you say it.”
He let her go and met her eyes. “I’m the one who said you shouldn’t be here. You remember that? I wanted you as far away from Fuentes as you could get, but circumstances dictated that I bring you along.”
“Yes, I remember, and now I see why, but I had to be here. I had to see it through.”
“I know why you had to come.” He knew her dedication to her job and the need to carry out her goal of arresting the Ghost and bringing him to justice were all that mattered. He also knew that she was torn by the discovery. He liked to think it was because she cared for him on a deeper level. But he wasn’t going to be a fool. She’d never shown any indication that she cared for him.
“We’d better get some sleep. We’ll need to be fresh for tomorrow when the buy goes down.”
“All right,” she said, her eyes dark with her own secrets and her own agenda.
He went inside, but Callie didn’t immediately follow. He turned to find her watching him. Her eyes went over every inch of him, from his hair down to his feet.
“Jammer, this is our last night together, isn’t it?
Tomorrow will change everything.”
“Don’t…don’t talk about it.”
“It will change, and we can’t get away from it no matter how much we want to.” She said it quietly and, if he wasn’t mistaken, with real regret.
“No, I guess we can’t.”
She reached over and picked an exotic flower off a vine growing close to the house. She came into the room but left the French doors open. Dimming the lights, she walked up to Jammer and slipped her hands under his shirt. Her palms were cool, and the petals of the flower whispered over his skin like butterfly wings. He shuddered as she lifted off his shirt.
She slid her hands up over his pectoral muscles and back down to his waistband, unbuckling, unbuttoning and unzipping.
With her palm in the middle of his chest, she pushed him onto the chaise longue.
“You look like a Greek god lying there.”
“I’m just a flesh-and-blood man and I need you.”
“I need you, too. I need you so much.”
She leaned across him, still fully clothed. As she began to kiss his chest, he started to undress her. When she opened her mouth over his flat nipple, he moaned and jerked her toward him. She gasped and he rid her of the rest of her clothes.
She kissed him then and her mouth was warm and soft against his. He poured himself into the kiss, knowing that their time grew short. His hands found her breasts and he cupped them, rubbing his palms over her engorged nipples, jerking her up until he could suck first one, then the other into his mouth. She cried out softly, lowered herself farther and farther down his body until she took him into her mouth.
His hips bucked and he moaned at the hot contact, at the tingling, sleek strokes of her tongue as she pulled at him.
It was difficult not to be restless, not to move his body, shift his limbs, in an effort to ease the ache that her expert mouth created in his every muscle and pore. He twisted on the chaise, his hips thrusting uncontrollably. Breaking her contact, he yanked her up against him and pushed into her so hard she cried out and climaxed. He grunted as she took him, held him, moved over him, matching him stroke for stroke as she continued to pulsate and shudder around him. He had no recourse, no way to stop the climax rushing to overtake him, and didn’t even try. She grasped his biceps, arching back as he came with a long, jerking groan. It was as if he couldn’t get deep enough, couldn’t pour enough of himself into her. It was beyond seeking physical pleasure. It was as if his soul recognized her and only her.
They clasped each other when it was over, and his voice was hoarse when he said, “How am I going to let you go?”
She pressed her face against his neck and said softly, “Don’t let me go right now. Don’t let go.”
He held on tightly to her, shifting them to the bed, where they curled into each other.
He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to hold her for as long as he could. But when sleep came, his arms didn’t loosen around her.
THE COOL BREEZE on her skin woke her as she shifted on the mattress to glance at the clock. Still early. She snuggled up to Jammer, then felt her stomach lurch. Today would be the day she arrested him for crimes against the U.S. It was going to hurt very badly.
She rolled away from him and got up to take a shower. Under the spray, she hardened herself; she could have no mercy. She would have to treat him like any other criminal. Detaching herself wasn’t going to be easy, but she had to do it. Powerful emotions twisted in her chest but she shoved them down. The time had come for her to fulfill her mission.
When she came out of the bathroom, Jammer smiled at her and went in. When he was done, they went for breakfast.
Fuentes was in the dining room and it wasn’t long before they were served eggs, bacon and fruit. Someone brought Callie coffee and juice. She ate, keeping her eyes on her plate and away from what she was sure were lecherous looks from the drug lord.
Jammer conversed with him in a monotone voice. When breakfast was done, Fuentes pushed back from the table. The sound of trucks filtered through the open windows. Fuentes checked his watch and smiled. “Ah, our guests are arriving. It’s time to seal the deal with the Libertad.”
“Gina, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment up in the room?” Jammer said.
Callie looked at him, then at Fuentes. The smug smile that crawled across the man’s face made her skin crawl. “Sure,” she said with a smile of her own, as if she wasn’t aware that Fuentes intended to make her his. Not damned likely.
She followed Jammer back to the bedroom. He closed the door behind her, took her hand and brought her over to a chair in the corner. It had heavy metal sides and weighed a ton, but was very comfortable.
“Have a seat,” he said. When she did, she was too slow to stop the slide and click of the handcuffs that encircled her wrist. When she pulled, she found herself shackled to the chair.
“What the…” she said, looking down at the cuffs, then up at Jammer.
He backed away and grabbed the bag he’d brought with him to Colombia.
