There was a silence, forcing her to meet his eyes.
Mack jerked his head and Javier sighed, stood, and then stretched. “If I’m going to be any good to you, I need rest.”
Mack nodded his assent. “We leave in a couple of hours. Have your gear ready. You can sleep on the plane.”
Jaimie’s stomach tightened. She waited until Javier left before she looked at Mack. “You’re leaving?” She had to set her teacup aside so he wouldn’t see her hand tremble.
He stepped close to her, so close she could feel his body heat. His eyes darkened, glittered at her as if she riled him. “You knew I’d have to go. What did you think? That Griffen can live on the run indefinitely? We don’t have a choice here.”
“We could do what I was going to do in the first place, Mack-go to the newspapers, put it on the Internet.”
“They’ll destroy you, Jaimie. Your reputation, everything. You know they will.”
His hand dropped to her knee, just rested there, but she was terribly aware of the heat generated by his palm through her thin drawstring pants. “I hate the mysterious ‘they.’ ‘They’ rule our lives. What are we going to do? Sit around and wait for them to kill us off one by one?”
His gaze met hers. There was absolute purpose there.
Jaimie’s heart jumped. “Mack.”
“I need to know everything you’ve got on Earl Thomas Bartlett, along with every company he’s associated with as well as friends and acquaintances. And don’t tell me you don’t have a file on him, Jaimie.”
She didn’t want to do this, give him the information he needed, but she knew she would. She’d much rather pretend she had found nothing at all, but instead, she nodded slowly. “He’s big, Mack. I know Homeland Security is supposed to have taken over everything, and coordinate with all the various security offices, but you and I both know that’s not altogether true. There are splinter groups that protect their superiors by being very compartmentalized. Everything Bartlett is associated with is shrouded in secrecy. I take it Javier gave you his name.”
His smile was almost worth it. He looked at her as if she was amazing even as he nodded his head. “Javier found a reference to him on the computer you let him use. How did you find him?” His hand moved, made little circles just above her knee.
Jaimie wasn’t certain he even realized how much he disturbed her with his touch, how her body responded even though they were talking about something so important. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “His name kept coming up. There was an obscure newspaper article I read. It should have been on the front page, but ended up buried. I knew the reporter had stumbled onto something big. Bartlett’s name is on several small shell companies. Each owns a private jet and seems legitimate. In fact, the companies file taxes and never turn much of a profit, everything very under the radar.”
“What kind of companies?” His hand moved up her thigh, those lazy circles getting wider. Closer. More compelling.
Jaimie could have stopped him. All she had to do was put her hand over his. He seemed to be just smoothing the pads of his fingers over her inner thigh absently. Her womb spasmed and she felt her panties go damp. She ached for him.
“Jaimie,” he prompted gently.
She forced her mind onto briefing him. “Quite a few of the companies are to do with foreign investments, but what I found the most interesting is the research facilities. Bartlett has ties to Donovan Corporation, built just outside of this city. Whitney is the majority stockholder in that company. Bartlett’s name appears on a company in Oregon as well as several tracts of land in Wyoming, Colorado, California, and Nevada. The land in Wyoming is supposedly used as a secret military training facility, as are all of the rest of them. We know the facility in Wyoming was really a research lab for Whitney’s experiments, specifically his breeding program, because Kane was stationed there.”
Mack’s hand moved to the hem of her top and pushed at it. His fingers brushed against bare skin right at her waist. “Bartlett is the name tying all of these places together?”
Butterflies flooded her stomach. She swallowed hard but continued. If he could breathe normally, then so could she. “I believe that there are more secret places supposedly used for military training, but Whitney remains hidden and this fictitious Bartlett is helping him.”
“You’re talking about the CIA.” His voice was soft. Sexy. He leaned into her just a little, bunching her shirt in his fist, raising the material inch by slow inch. He was looking at her body, not at her.
She was having difficulty breathing no matter how hard she tried to stay cool.
“Bartlett’s got to be their money man, Mack. And he doesn’t exist anywhere.”
“But you know who he is.” He made it a statement as he bent forward until she could feel his warm breath against her belly.
Jaimie closed her eyes. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Had his voice shaken? She didn’t know. His lips were against her skin as he spoke. She could feel them, velvet soft, moving over her tummy. He moved into her, forcing her body back to give him more room.
“Because he was arrested and charged with murder and espionage and convicted. He was serving out his sentence in a military prison. According to his records, he attempted suicide by hanging himself and lost brain function. At that time he was transferred to a hospital for the insane and is currently residing there.” She dared to touch him. To put her hands in his hair, that thick mass of short hair that felt so good moving over her skin.
“He does all this from the hospital with no brain function?” His tongue moved in her belly button. His fist yanked her shirt up over her breasts. He frowned at her.
“Why the hell do you always wear a bra?”
“I’m modest.”
“Take it off.” He stood there, wedged between her thighs, angling her body back over the desktop, his fist holding her cami up. “Take it off for me, Jaimie.”
Her fingers trembled. She glanced at the stairway, but she unhooked the front clasp and let the cups part in the middle, spilling her breasts out into the open air. There was relief as the cool air touched her skin. “I thought I was briefing you.”
“You are. You were telling me about your suspect losing brain function and still running things from a mental hospital.”
She took a slow breath, her breasts heaving. Mack just kept his head close to her body, his mouth pressed against her belly button. She could barely think with the roaring in her head. “I don’t think he was ever in prison, Mack. I think someone else was taken to prison, probably this man…” She caught his head in her hands. “I’m going to need the computer.”
“Then take off your top.”
“You want me to brief you topless?”
“Yes.” He stepped back slowly, his eyes moving broodingly over her face.
“Will you remember what I tell you?”
“Every damn word,” he said, “will be etched into my brain.”
“Well, then.” Jaimie drew her top over her head and set it aside.
“Your bra,” he prompted.
She let the bra straps slide down her arms and she placed the lacy scrap on top of her shirt. She heard his indrawn breath and found herself smiling as she turned to her computer, her fingers flashing across the keyboard to bring up a picture of a young, earnest-looking man with dark hair and scared eyes. “This is Thomas Matherson. He was an aide to Phillip Thornton, who happened to be CEO of Donovan Labs a couple of years ago. Matherson disappeared right after Thornton was arrested. Everyone thought he was involved and that he ran. The rumor is, he
