He turned his head to look at her, and she smiled and snuggled closer to him. She moved her damp head and rested it on his shoulder, and then tentatively tilted her face up, her full lips parting as she kissed his mouth, her tongue finding his as she inhaled the sweet aroma of his freshly-scrubbed skin. A commercial came on the TV advertising a fruit juice cocktail, and he groaned as she slid her hand under his towel. Her pulse quickened as a rush of familiar sensations flooded her awareness, and then her towel fell open, and she was plunging into a warm sea, her senses hungry for a touch she’d never expected to feel again.
David lay spent, a trickle of sweat lazily finding its way down his hairline to his ear, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her incredible, naked body.
His mind drifted to the events of the last few days, and then back to the last time he’d seen her. She’d been so adamant about getting out of the game and starting over. Maybe he should have figured out a way to do the same and gone with her — a thought he’d nurtured every day since her car had exploded on the deserted street in Northern Africa. But the truth was that he still believed back then, and he couldn’t just walk away. He’d taken an oath, and his country required men like him to keep the barbarians at bay. Sometimes there was a very wide gray area between what was legal and what was necessary, but he’d never questioned that he was on the side of right.
Until recently, when the team had been executed and his life’s work had come crashing down around him. With Eli compromised, there was no telling who else Grigenko and his cronies in the Russian intelligence service had turned — when you went fishing, you put out as many lines as possible, and he expected the Russian had done the same. Which meant that every one of the team’s recent actions could have well been to remove rivals to Grigenko’s growing commercial interests, and had little or nothing to do with national security.
David was used to living in a moral no-man’s zone, but when his confidence in the system abandoned him, suddenly his choices seemed more questionable than ever. Thinking back to Algiers, did they really know for sure that those petroleum executives and ministers had been terrorist financiers? He’d never heard of any of them until receiving the tip from the CIA. But where had the CIA gotten wind of it? Wasn’t it equally likely that Grigenko’s reach extended to that agency as well? Could David ever be sure that any of the supposed reasons behind the missions his team had carried out were those he had been fed?
He pushed the thought aside and stroked her hair. He couldn’t change anything at this point.
Still, he regretted so many things. Not the least of which was losing her, and the actions he’d subsequently taken.
If he could turn back the clock, he would have played things so differently. But at the time, he’d done what seemed necessary to protect those he cared about most. For all of her conviction that she could start over, he knew that the world didn’t work that way. She could never be a hundred percent safe — not with the number of enemies she had accumulated. He had wanted to warn her, but had chosen not to — and now she’d found out the hard way and had barely escaped with her life.
There was so much he wished he could tell her, but now wasn’t the time. The last thing he needed was to complicate their already volatile situation with confessions and begging for forgiveness. There would always be time for that later. Not now. Not here. And not under these circumstances.
Would she ever be able to forgive him?
Could he ever forgive himself?
Glancing at his watch, he listened to the soft sound of her gentle breathing, then inched away from her, pausing to admire the golden brown of her skin. Nature and genetics had been exceptionally kind. Perhaps that was how the universe worked: it compensated for the bad luck with offsetting positives.
Ever since he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d felt an irresistible attraction. Something far more than simple lust, it had been seismic and relentless. Neither of them had any choice in it, and he idly wondered whether there was actually something to the whole idea of soul mates or love at first sight. The intensity of his feelings for her had frightened him — he was used to being in control, and this was a storm, a hurricane of emotion that he was powerless to manipulate. He’d never had that happen before, and he’d certainly had his share of romantic interludes.
No, Jet was a game changer.
David sat up, and she shifted, curling into a fetal position and murmuring sleepily to herself.
She looked like an angel when she was sleeping. So perfect, yet so lethal. A cobra in a model’s body.
Whatever happened, however things turned out, he would make different choices this time around. They had been presented with a second chance. That never happened.
This time he wouldn’t blow it. He’d be worthy of her trust.
He pulled on his shirt and pants and took the room key card before slipping out into the hall. Hopefully, his contact would have a solution for getting them out of Israel. He had no doubt they would escape.
Money and desperation were powerful forces, and they had ample quantities of both.
Chapter 23
“Are you ready for a boat ride?”
“What are you talking about?” Jet replied.
David closed the hotel room door and approached her, then set a pair of nail clippers on the table, where she was munching on some fruit. The morning sun streamed through the gauze curtains, warming her as she reached for the clippers.
“We have to be at the dock just before nightfall. At the private yacht marina in Haifa harbor. The story will be that we’re going night fishing for shark. Money may have changed hands between the patrol boats and my contact’s captain — who knows? But he’s got a fifty-foot sports fisher that can make it to Cyprus in eight hours, easy, at which point we’ll be on our own.”
“That’s great news. The sooner we’re off Israeli soil, the better. I’ve been watching the news, and all they’re talking about are the shootings. No mention of Eli.”
David nodded. “No surprise there. He didn’t exist as far as the public is concerned. Just another anonymous bureaucrat. The Mossad will cover it all up — his body probably won’t be found for weeks, and then if he’s lucky, his passing will warrant three column inches on page eighteen mourning his demise following a domestic accident. He’ll be described as a deputy director of public safety or something like that. We all know how it works when we sign up.”
“If there’s anything good to come of all this,” Jet reflected, “it’s that you’re off the radar now. Any search for you will lose steam over time. And with some plastic surgery, nobody would recognize you.”
“That reminds me. Did you get something done? You look a little different.”
“Got my nose narrowed. The effect is subtle but effective.”
“If anything, you’re more beautiful than before. If that’s even possible.”
She snipped at the hand stitches and quickly pulled them free of her skin. The scar would be barely noticeable within a week.
Jet rose and walked over to where he was standing and put her arms around his neck, then kissed him long and deep. When she pulled back, she was smiling.
“Are you angling for more lovemaking, David? Because compliments are never a bad way to go about it.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“It’s not a negative. It’s about the only thing I can read about you. Everything else, you’re the sphinx. Inscrutable.”
“You have a lot of that going on, too — the inscrutable thing.” He kissed her again.
“How’s the stomach? You sure you can handle another round?” she asked, already pulling her top over her head.
“The doctor did say to get some exercise.”
~ ~ ~
Jet’s only project for the day was to trim her hair — she needed to alter her appearance, and a short cut was the perfect way, especially since all the photos she knew about had her with a long or medium-length cut. She had
