“What do you mean? What will we have to do…?” she began nervously.
“I mean, as I told you in Rome, that we’ll have to be inseparable for the most part. We have to look as if we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
She stopped breathing, she knew she did. Her eyes wandered quietly over his face. “Is that why, at the Forum…?”
He hesitated for an instant. “Yes,” he said deliberately. “You were far too jumpy with me to be taken for my lover. It has to look convincing to do us any good.”
“I see,” she said, fighting to keep her disappointment from showing.
He studied her eyes, her cheeks, and then her mouth. “You have the softest lips, Gabby,” he murmured absently. “So full and tempting; and I like the taste of them all too much…” He caught himself and lifted his eyes. “You’d better remind me at intervals that you’re off-limits.”
She was so aware of him that she tingled, and the thought that he might kiss her again made her go hot all over. She smiled strangely and looked away.
“What was that about, that tiny little smile?” he asked curiously.
“I never used to think of you that way,” she confessed without thinking.
“How? As a lover?” he probed.
She lowered her eyes quickly. “Yes,” she said shyly.
She felt his long fingers brush her cheek and then her neck, where the pulse was beating wildly.
“Oddly enough, I’ve hardly thought of you any other way,” he said in a deep, gruff whisper.
Her lips opened as she drew a sharp breath, and she looked straight into his eyes. “J.D….?” she whispered uncertainly.
His thumb brushed across her mouth, a tiny whisper of sensation that made her ache in the oddest places. His own breath wasn’t quite steady, and he frowned, as if what was happening wasn’t something he’d counted on or expected.
His eyes dropped to her parted lips and she heard him catch his breath. In a burst of nervousness, her tongue probed moistly at her dry upper lip and he made a rough sound in his throat. “Gabby, don’t do that,” he ground out. His thumb pressed hard against her mouth, and his head bent. “Let me…”
In a starburst of sensation, she felt the first tentative brush of his hard lips against her own.
And just as it began, it was suddenly over. The speakers blared out a warning for passengers to fasten their seat belts, and the delicate spell was broken.
J.D. lifted his head reluctantly, his eyes almost black with frustration, his face pale. “The next time,” he whispered gruffly, “I’ll kiss the breath out of you, the way I wanted to at the Forum.”
She couldn’t answer him. She was swimming in deep waters, hungry for him in an unexpectedly desperate way. Her hands fumbled with her seat belt and she couldn’t look at him. What was happening to them? she wondered, shaken. Just the morning before, they’d been employer and employee. And in a flash, they were something else, something frightening.
His hand caught hers, enfolding it. “Don’t, please, be frightened of me,” he said under his breath. “I won’t hurt you. Not in any way, for any reason.”
She glanced at him. “I’m all right,” she said. “I’m just…just…”
“Stunned?” he asked wryly. “Join the crowd. It shocked me, too.”
Her eyes locked on their clasped hands. “But I thought you kissed me to—how did you put it—make it look better for the men?”
“I did. And to satisfy my own curiosity about you. And yours about me.” He tilted her face up to his. “Now we know, don’t we?”
“I think I’d be better off not knowing,” she muttered.
“Really? At least now you’ve learned how to kiss.”
“You have the diplomacy of a tank!” she shot at him.
He smiled, his teeth white against that olive tan. “You’re spunky, Gabby. I’m glad. You’re going to need spunk.”
His words brought back the reason for their trip, and she frowned. The plane started to descend and she clung to J.D.’s strong fingers, wondering if in a few weeks this would all be nothing more than a memory. He’d said they’d have to seem involved; was this just a practice session? The frown deepened. She realized quite suddenly that she didn’t want it to be. She wanted J.D. to kiss the breath out of her, as he’d threatened, and mean it.
They landed in Mexico City, and Gabby’s eyes widened as they walked into the terminal. She smiled, dreams of Aztecs and ancient ruins going through her mind—until she remembered poor Martina, and the fact that they weren’t here to look at tourist attractions.
She looked at J.D., standing tall and quiet at her side. He stared slowly around the terminal while Gabby shifted restlessly beside him, their two small carry-on cases beside her.
After what seemed like a long time, J.D. began to smile as a tall, devastatingly attractive man strode toward them. He was wearing a beige suit and leather boots, and he looked debonair and a little dangerous—like J.D.
“Laremos.” J.D. grinned as they shook hands.
“Did you think I’d forgotten you?” the other man asked in softly accented English. “You look well, Archer.”
Gabby’s eyebrows lifted curiously.
“Archer,” the man explained, “is the name to which he answered many years ago, during our…acquaintance. You are Gabby Darwin, no?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “And you are Señor Laremos?”
“Diego Laremos, a sus ordenes,” he said formally, bowing. He grinned. “A beauty, Archer.”
“Yes, I think so myself,” J.D. said casually, smiling at her as he drew her unresisting body close to his side. “Did Dutch phone you?”
The smile faded and Laremos was at once something else, something out of Gabby’s experience. “Sí. Drago and Semson and Apollo are here now.”
“Good. How about my equipment?”
“Apollo got it from Dutch,” Laremos said, his voice low and intent. “An Uzi and a new AKM.”
J.D. nodded while Gabby tried to decide what in the world they were talking about. “We’ll need some RPGs.”
“We have two,” Laremos said. “And eight blocks of C-4, rockets for the RPGs, assorted paraphernalia, jungle gear, and plenty of ammo. The border is a hotbed for drug and human traffickers these days—you can get anything if you have the money and the contacts.”
J.D. smiled faintly. “Dutch said First Shirt has both. You made a smart move when you put him in charge of your ranch security.”
“Sí,” Laremos agreed. “It is why I survive and many of my neighbors have not. The finca above mine was burned to the ground a month ago, and its owner…” He glanced at Gabby. “Forgive me, señorita. Such talk is not for the ears of women.”
“I don’t even understand it,” she said, studying both men. “What is an RP…whatever it was? And what do you mean, rockets?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later,” J.D. promised. “Got the plane?” he asked Laremos.
The other man nodded. “We will have to go through customs. I assume you have nothing on you that it would be embarrassing to declare when we land, otherwise you would not have made it through Mexican customs.”