He heard an odd hiccup from Roxie, somewhere between laughter and tears. He gave her a nudge in reply with his knee and the game was on, Mac thumping the wall while Roxie kept time.
It was he who had trouble muffling his laughter as she did the classic coffee-shop scene of exaggerated moans. And Mac’s body felt exhilarated and exhausted at once, as if they’d really made love.
The headboard hit the wall another couple of times, as he yelled loud enough to deafen anyone listening. Out of breath, he slid under the covers that no longer felt cold. “Was that good for you, chérie?”
Roxie sounded genuinely sleepy. “Mac, you’re the best. Night…” He felt her roll onto her side, facing away from him.
Too bad his performance hadn’t done anything to cull his aching need. Listening to her moan had exacerbated his condition to the point of torture.
But wondering how it felt to be inside her, to be the one who made her sigh and gasp, would be more kill than cure, and his mother never raised a masochist. No sir.
True American patriots, his mother and father had served their country with diplomacy in embassies set in some of the most far-flung countries of the world.
Serving the United States had become ingrained in him from the time he was a small child. That’s what had made him the man he was today, a man of honor. As for the different roles he played, the lies he told, they didn’t count.
At first the pretense had simply been a way to serve his country, but after meeting Jason Hart, they had become a means of keeping the world safe from terrorism.
He turned his back to Roxie.
Sleep wouldn’t find him as easily as it had her. He still had work to do, Thierry to contact. An hour passed slowly in the heavy silence.
Finally, at 3:00 a.m., he slipped from under the covers, hardly disturbing them as he left her sleeping, and dressed in his jeans and jacket, then unfastened his watch to retrieve a fine tungsten lock pick from the back of it.
Mac had checked the door to the attic earlier and been quietly pleased to discover Yves had made it easy for him by removing the key. The lock turned with hardly a sound.
Easing the door open, he slipped out onto the top landing and down the stairs, confident of being back before she even knew he was gone.
As well as contacting Thierry, there was the layout of the house to reconnoiter and an escape route to plan. This time, he would be prepared, and should another gorgeous woman chance to cross his path, he’d step aside and let her go on by.
With Roxie, he was sailing too close to the wind.
Let her believe he was a criminal. He didn’t care. Nor would he let her know that no matter what he’d told her, he wouldn’t stand by and watch anyone harm her.
It took him thirty minutes to reconnoiter the house and talk to Thierry. The question uppermost in his mind had been answered.
The identity of the fourth man.
IBIS had identified the owner of the house, Monsieur Victoire Sevarin, deputy minister of France’s Department of Defense.
No matter how deeply some internal security agencies scrutinized the backgrounds of their employees, one rotten apple always managed to taint the whole barrel.
Sevarin’s had been the hand that controlled France’s biotech weapons research. Who better to acquire Green Shield than the man who was supposed to control its destruction?
One problem solved, a thousand to go.
Already aware of Sevarin, Thierry’s priorities took an oblique angle. “Who was the girl?”
He gave Thierry all the information he had, which didn’t include her surname. How to explain that the blood running hot in his veins had put a little thing like surnames out of his mind.
It wasn’t the type of information Mac wanted to get around.
Back in the attic, Mac locked the door, with no one the wiser that he’d been gone. Quickly discarding his clothes, he padded over to the bed and slid under the pile of quilts covering Roxie.
As soon as his body hit the mattress, the extra weight sent her rolling toward him. She snuggled against him without waking. Then wrapped around him, tangling her legs with his as if they always slept that way.
It was a long night.
Roxie’s head rested serenely on his chest as the sky began to turn from blue-black to gray. He hadn’t slept, but that was something he was used to. It hadn’t taken him long to discover she’d ditched the T-shirt she’d been wearing in the half hour he’d been gone. Now the soft swell of her lace-covered breasts presented him with a tease he didn’t dare respond to.
He was totally firm about that in his mind.
His body had no such scruples.
Mac discovered when it came to Roxie, no amount of reciting times tables or logarithms could suppress the erection lying between them. It pressed into the welcoming curve of her belly as if it had a mind of its own.
As soon as the sun came up, he would leave her in bed and treat his libido to a cold shower, since that looked like being the only reprimand it understood.
Chapter 5
Bars of pale watery sunlight slipped through the bars on the window, painting stripes on the faded blue quilt covering Roxie.
Memory hit her the moment she opened her eyes and surveyed her prison. She leapt out of bed, checking her watch.
It was 8:00 a.m. and she was alone.
Roxie glanced down at the lacy camisole revealing her breasts, and from it to the little-boy short panties that matched. The T-shirt she’d gone to bed in was on the floor, and she couldn’t remember taking it off, but at least she was halfway decent.
It took several moments more to recall the camera that watched her every move, and less time than that to pick up the black T-shirt and pull it over her head.
Trying not to glance the camera’s way, she ran her palm across the rumpled sheets on the other side of the bed. There was still a dent in the feather pillow from Mac’s head.
The sheets were still warm. Almost as warm as the memory of the act she’d put on the night before.
She could hear the shower running on the other side of the bathroom door. Hoping Mac was discreetly tucked behind its curtain as she dashed to the bathroom, with a perfunctory knock she dived through the door without waiting for a reply.
Eyes closed, Roxie leaned back against the coat she’d left hanging from the hook, to catch her breath.
It must have been Mac leaving the bed they were sharing that wakened her, since he couldn’t have been showering long, for the steam still hadn’t filled the bathroom.
She could see Mac’s tall shape through the opaque plastic curtain, the top of his head level with the curtain rail.
Although his outline was blurred, she made out that it tapered nicely from shoulder to waist, six-pack abs but no unnecessary mass to his muscles.
Heat scored her cheekbones as she remembered curving her hand round his arm while pressing against his chest. But she had no time to dwell on the memory as Mac asked, “Come to join me?”
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