Julia shivered. He gathered her close. His fingers drifted down her spine, making small, lazy circles over her back. She curled into him.
Before she could answer, his mouth covered hers, coaxing, caressing.
“Just one. The one I wanted at the apartment. The one I’ve been craving since …” He captured her groan in a long, deep kiss. Desire rolled through her, over her, in an unleashed tidal wave of heat.
Drowning, she broke away. “Stop, Cal.”
Hadn’t she hitched that ride? A whirlpool of molten lava that tugged at her until her senses spiraled into a thick vortex of desire and anger. Fast and furious, she’d loved every minute of it.
Loved him.
Until he’d played her. Used her to get information for MI6, England’s answer to the CIA.
Top secret information.
Seduce the President’s secretary, steal files from her computer and win the game.
She pulled back, broke contact and forced herself to look at him again. Past the dark, set, sexy features to the cold, calculating depths underneath.
“I think I’d like a drink now.” She stepped away, praying her legs wouldn’t buckle beneath her as she made her way to the love seat.
For support, she settled deep into the cushions. For spite, she crossed her legs, deliberately letting the material slide up mid-thigh.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
His gaze wandered up from her bare feet, over her knees to the tip of the hem. Only then did he shift back to her face. His fingers flexed for a brief second at his side.
“No.” The word was clipped, its sting sharp enough to make her flinch.
Almost.
SOLARIS LEANED ON THE RAIL OF THE freighter, The Hyperion, and took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke caught in his chest and held. For a moment he enjoyed the sting of the nicotine, then slowly exhaled.
The ship rolled beneath his feet. The rhythm set by a nearby crane as it settled orange and brown cargo containers onto The Hyperion’s deck.
He was a fisherman’s son. Spent his youth hauling nets, trawling traps, setting hooks and sails. The work roped the muscles of his six-foot frame, added bulk to the wide shoulders and barreled chest, set steel in his spine.
Over the years, he’d lost his father and two brothers in the storms, while his cousins lost limbs and with them, the taste for the sea.
But Solaris continued, taking pride in what his father had passed to him. The skills, his family’s name. Until the commercial fishing companies muscled in and stole their livelihood—leaving his mother and sisters to starve.
The water lapped up against the side of the ship, its spray caught in the tug of the wind leaving a sheen of salt water sparkling in the air, the taste of the ocean at the back of his throat.
At eighteen, Solaris had killed his first man. A lawyer who came to repossess their family home and business. There was no remorse, no pity. Nothing but utter satisfaction when the man took his last breath with Solaris’s knife in his chest, his hand still on the hilt.
It was then he realized his other talent. And killing had become his new line of work.
For the first fifteen years, he drifted from country to country, hiring his skills out to those who could pay for them, learning his trade, building his fortune.
Then he met Cristo Delgado.
In the years he worked for Cristo, Solaris’s bank account had quadrupled. He even managed a few deals on the side.
Though he had never returned home, he continued sending money to his mother and sisters through untraceable means.
A limousine pulled up near the gangway. Solaris pitched his cigarette into the water and stepped from the railing.
Cristo’s lieutenant, Jorgie, got out of the front passenger seat and stood next to the limo. A bandage crossed his nose and connected two swollen black eyes. Another wrapped around his right hand and wrist.
A moment later, four additional homegrown thugs emerged from a nearby black sedan and flanked the limousine.
Once his men appeared in place, Cristo emerged from the limo, said something to Jorgie while he buttoned his Armani suit coat, and slipped on a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
Despite his age, Cristo managed to stay trim and fit. Driven by vanity, he worked out regularly in the villa’s indoor pool. But besides a mistress or two, Solaris’s boss had no other vices.
Cristo glanced up and smiled, revealing a row of white teeth that flashed against the tanned face and well-groomed silver hair.
Even from a distance, it was evident that Cristo’s smile didn’t quite mask the tight features, nor the stiff, determined gait.
Solaris assumed something had gone amiss with the Cutting woman.
It was time for him to get to work.
“Your boss seems happy enough, eh?”
Captain Damien Stravos appeared beside Solaris. The man stroked his overgrown beard with his knuckles and squinted into the sun.
He was short for a Greek, his head not quite meeting Solaris’s shoulder, with a rotund stomach that hung over bowed legs.
“And why not?” Solaris agreed without qualm. Deliberately, he studied the horizon where the blue sky merged with the deeper blue of the ocean. “It is a beautiful day today.”
“Somehow, I do not think it is the weather that has put Cristo in a good mood,” Stravos commented, wheezing, but from his excitement or his girth, Solaris wasn’t sure. “We have made a good deal.”
Solaris did not correct the captain. It was a good deal. The transportation of thirty tons of cocaine to the United States—a street value of millions—with the promise of more if all went well.
The risks were high, but that was the nature of their business. Solaris didn’t agree with Delgado’s plans for freighting the merchandise over the Caribbean Sea when smaller boats, while less profitable, were easier to keep under the DEA’s radar.
But Solaris kept his opinion to himself. He had no stake in that side of Cristo’s business, so the risk was not his.
Captain Stravos met Cristo at the top of the gangway. The latter ordered his men to stand guard by the rail several feet away.
“Good day, Damien.”
“Yes, yes. A good day.” The captain glanced at Solaris. “Were we not just talking about that?”
After Solaris shrugged, the men shook hands. “You are ready to finalize our plans?” Cristo asked.
“Yes, yes,” Stravos responded once again, his voice more eager.
Something Solaris had thought impossible.
“How is your lovely wife, Cristo?”
“She is doing well. In fact, she insists on your dining with us the day after tomorrow.”
“Fine, fine,” he said, barely masking his joy.
Cristo Delgado bit back the irritation and widened his smile. It was no secret that Stravos lusted after his wife. But Cristo chose to ignore the fact. For now.
Stravos was annoying certainly, but he was an excellent captain. And he asked very few questions. Besides, it wasn’t Stravos that sparked Cristo’s impatience, it was the Cutting woman. And now, Calvin West.
“Allow me a moment with my man, here.” Cristo nodded toward Solaris. “Then I will join you, Damien. For some brandy, maybe?”
“Of course.” Stravos tipped