Eight

NIIGATA AND ZAMPIERI BOARDED WITH MAX. OPERATIVES were skilled in triage, and they grabbed a first-aid kit, then settled into their seats near the front of the aircraft to tend their wounds. The aircraft was spacious and well appointed with whatever the operatives might need going to or from an op. The galley was always fully stocked with fresh food and quick frozen meals. A doctor could perform surgery, and frequently had, with the state-of-the-art medical equipment onboard. The copilot on all the T-FLAC jets was also always a medic.

Every piece of high-tech equipment on the market (and a lot that weren’t) was available at the touch of a button.

Max didn’t care one way or another about the navy-and-camel décor, other than that the swivel, reclining, navy leather seats were comfortable, and big enough to stretch out flat. Sometimes the flight was long, and catching a nap was all the sleep they would get until the op was completed.

Emily was halfway down the aisle, headed to the back of the plane as Max stopped to grab a few essentials from the galley, a second first aid kit, and a blanket from one of the overheads. She was a little unsteady on her feet, but she walked the length of the plane before picking one of the chairs near the back. The seats weren’t in rows, but in groupings of four with a table that could be folded open between them.

By the time he got to her she was staring unblinkingly out of the dark window. Her reflection showed him that she was hanging on by a thread. He had no idea how she’d react when the shock wore off. Everyone reacted to trauma differently. Anger. Tears. Depression.

She didn’t acknowledge him when he sat down beside her. “Want a blanket?”

She shook her head.

“Buckle up,” he instructed. The pilot didn’t give a shit who was onboard or what their condition. He wouldn’t take off until everyone was seated and strapped in. Max wanted to help her with the buckle on her belt, but when he reached over, she put up a hand to prevent him touching it, or her, and—eventually—managed it herself, even though her blood-smudged hands were shaking badly.

Twisting off the cap, he handed her the bottle he’d grabbed from the galley. “Water?” Max tamped down the urge to yank her into his lap again. This time holding on. Tightly. Jesus.

Like a robot, she lifted the bottle to her mouth, took a sip, then lowered it to the holder in the console of the armrest. She leaned her head back, but didn’t close her eyes as the jet taxied down the long runway. Strain tightened her features, making her more starkly beautiful than ever. Her large brown eyes were still glassy, her shoulders unnaturally stiff as she tried unsuccessfully to control the tremors racking her body.

Shit.

Life vs. T-FLAC.

Here he was: dragging his personal life into an op. Insane.

“Wanna argue?” he asked, half joking.

“Maybe later.”

Yeah. Maybe later. She was safe on the T-FLAC jet. Nothing was going to hurt her for the duration. What he needed to concentrate on was the op.

The latest explosions in the mosque, following the church and the synagogue, were part of a pattern; a string of bombings. In a few hours a T-FLAC team would be assembled and in Spain. Ready to hunt down the tangos responsible for this latest explosion. As yet no demands had been made. Just the mysterious bouquet of lilies left near the bomb site. Max knew that a demand would come. It was just a matter of time. Tangos always had an agenda, no matter how convoluted it might be or how many of them there were.

He couldn’t drag Emily from pillar to post with him wherever the fuck the trail led. No matter how badly he wanted to keep her close. She’d have to be stashed in a safe house until he ascertained what the hell was going on.

He was pleased he’d asked for Cooper. As part of his team she’d already been dispatched to Córdoba. The woman was an excellent operative; he’d trust her to keep Emily safe until he returned. Damn it, that could be six hours, or six months.

Maybe he could piece together more of the puzzle before he put Emily in the safe house. The one in Wiesbaden, he decided. Keep her close.

With any luck he’d have some answers from his people in Florence by the time he got back as well.

One team was doing their thing at the scene of tonight’s crime right now. Another was tirelessly interrogating the man who’d broken into her palazzo. Yet another group was still at Emily’s home, searching for any clue that might reveal what the man had left or taken. Perhaps something that hadn’t made it as far as the vial? Or something that didn’t leave any trace inside it?

They still didn’t know.

The man’s fingerprints had been on the glass vial. But a match hadn’t been found in any of T-FLAC’s extensive databases, which included AFIS and the records from hundreds of law enforcement and governmental agencies around the world. God damn it. He didn’t want to go haring off to Spain without knowing what the fuck was going on. More immediately, he wanted to see her body for himself to confirm she hadn’t been physically harmed. Something he could only ascertain once the transferred blood had been washed off.

“How long were you and Bozzato an item?”

She rolled her head to look at him. “About five months. Why?”

“How much did you know about him?”

“What are you doing? Taking a survey?”

“Trying to figure out who the target really is. You or your boyfriend. Answer the question.”

“I know he was decent, hardworking, and kind.”

“Sounds like a regular AKC champion,” Max told her shortly. “What else? Did he have enemies?”

“He was a financial consultant. Maybe someone didn’t like what he told them—God. I don’t know. Whoever did, did…that, wasn’t an enemy. He was a butcher. Besides, I know Franco, he wasn’t capable of making an enemy that would want him, or me, dead.”

“Did you notice anyone suspicious hanging around when the two of you went out?”

“No.”

“How about when you were out alone? Ever get the sensation someone was watching you? Maybe at the market, or the florist, or the bank?” The problem was, she was so gorgeous that people would be looking at her all the time. She probably wouldn’t notice one more pair of eyes.

“No.”

“Any strange cars outside your palazzo? Or perhaps showing up more often than could be coincidence when you were driving around?”

“No.”

“How about hang ups? Wrong numbers? Crank calls?”

“No. No. And no.”

“Other than Franco, made any new friends lately? One who asked a lot of questions?”

She shook her head.

“Filled in a survey or opened a new account? How about filling in a credit ap for that new car of yours?”

“I paid cash.”

He raised a brow. “That’s a big chunk of change.”

“I could afford it.”

“Restoration work pays that well?”

“If you’re as good as I am, yes. But I also received a large payment for the work I did for a private client. I bought the Maserati in celebration when I turned in the last painting.”

The Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT ran well over a hundred grand, more for all the bells and whistles Emily had. That was serious bank.

“Are we talking about the work you did for Richard Tillman?”

“You think a sick, eighty-year-old multimillionaire in Denver is trying to kill me? For God’s sake, Max! What kind of people do you associate with? None of this has anything to do with Tillman. Or Franco,” she added.

Maybe not. But he made a mental note to go to Denver and pay a call on the reclusive, born-again philanthropist to ask him some questions. In the meantime, he’d have T-FLAC intel check into Tillman’s activities for the past year.

“Your mentor worked for him as well, right?”

“Why don’t you at least call your father by name?”

“Because sperm donors are anonymous by nature. I like to keep it that way.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, and a worse thing to believe. He gave you life, he cared about yo—”

“No. He did not. I hate to burst your rosy bubble about Daniel Aries, but the man was a pathological liar, a serially unfaithful husband, and he had no interest—let me repeat—no interest in having a son. Ever. And lest you think that this has had any bearing on my life as an adult, let me assure you that it hasn’t,” Max said flatly.

“My mother, who loved the son of a bitch to the bitter end, always welcomed him back with open arms. He’d cheat, she’d forgive him.” Elbows on the armrests he tapped his fingertips lightly on the leather. When he realized what he was doing, he bunched his hands into light fists and made a point of holding them still. “I loved the hell out of her, but it drove me insane to see her crying every time he left. And leave he did. Often.”

Emily’s brow knit. “He cheated?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She let out a breath she’d been holding. “Oh, Daniel.” She reached out and touched Max’s arm, regarding him from those hot chocolate eyes that melted his brain and made him want to do and say things that weren’t—had never been—in his repertoire.

“I’m sorry, Max. I really am. For years your father told me all these wild, improbable stories about you and your life. I suspected that most of them weren’t true. If they had been, you would have to have been in your sixties to fit all of that in.”

“Only the name was changed to protect the guilty. Yeah. That was my old man describing himself. Why the hell he’d do that I have no idea.”

“Because it made him look better in comparison?” she suggested, pressing a fist against her solar plexus. He noticed that her eyes had lost focus, and guessed she was back to thinking about the murders. Her struggle to distract herself and concentrate on what she was saying, impressed the hell out of him. He could tell she was holding herself together by a very thin thread of sheer guts and determination.

She blinked herself back into the conversation and continued almost without pause. If someone hadn’t been observing her as closely as Max was, they would have missed it. “Or perhaps he was merely tarring you with his own brush?” She bit her lower lip. “I have to admit I never could understand how he frequently complained that he had no relationship with you, yet he insisted that he knew you so well. I suspect your mother wrote to him for years off and on. But even if that were true, I doubt she’d know, or even think that about you. And even if she did, she wouldn’t have shared that with Daniel.”

“Why not?” he asked curiously.

“Because she loved you,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “She’d never tell tales about you, especially not to your father. Is that what Daniel was like in his youth? A philanderer?”

“Big time.”

Instead of answering she stretched the hem of her sweater away from her body and grimaced, then noticed Max still watching her and glanced away, folding her arms tightly over her chest.

“After he left for the last time things were considerably better at home,” he said to the curve of her cheek. She was maintaining her composure, but barely. “My mother attempted to divorce him a couple of times. I suspect she didn’t try that hard. Still, he ignored the papers she had her lawyer send.” He shrugged. “After a while he didn’t seem to matter to her. He was gone, and she went back to building a life.”

“That was their relationship,” she told him quietly. “And sad as that was, you and Daniel could have, should have, made some sort of connection, don’t you think?”

Although she was keeping up her end of the conversation, she still looked too fragile for his peace of mind. Max felt uncharacteristically helpless. “Obviously not.” The last damn person he wanted to discuss was his father. On the other hand, talking about her mentor, hell, defending her mentor, put a lively fire in Emily’s wounded brown eyes, and brought a flush to her pale cheeks.

He decided to piss her off a little more, in the hope that she’d forget, if only for a few more minutes, the horror she’d witnessed. “Drop it,” he told her, his voice grim. He wanted to get her in the shower, where he would personally wash the blood from her skin. He couldn’t stand seeing it on her. Couldn’t stand that she’d bear the memory of what had happened to her friends whenever she closed her eyes.

He couldn’t fix that. Couldn’t erase those memories.

Crap. He didn’t remember when he’d ever felt this helpless. The knowledge made him feel hollow inside.

He knew she wouldn’t appreciate that the only way he could think to help her was to fuck her brains out until neither of them remembered their names, let alone the bloody massacre. And then he wanted to do it again until they were both too exhausted to move.

Damn it to hell, he wanted that look gone from her eyes. He wanted the hard, grim line of her mouth to go back to the soft sweet curve he was familiar with.

“Drop it?” She gave him just the exasperated look he’d expected. “Drop it? We don’t always have to like the people we love. Sometimes we don’t even know our parents, or who they are. Every parent/child relationship takes work.” She took a swig out of her water bottle. “Connections can’t flourish unless one of you is willing to do more than fifty percent to make that happen,” she told him flatly.

“Who are we talking about here?” He kept his voice carefully neutral. “Me or you?”

“You.” She sounded genuinely angry now.

“Hmm. We didn’t love each other. We were strangers.” Even he wasn’t sure if they were still talking about his relationship with his father, or if somehow the conversation had veered off into something a damn sight more personal. And dangerous.

“You should have tried harder.”

He shifted in his seat, stretching out his legs, getting more comfortable. No. Not getting more comfortable. Feeling less un comfortable, damn it. “This conversation is a dead end.”

“Fine. But don’t sit here interrogating me, when you refuse to answer a simple damn question.”

The plane leveled off at altitude. “Nothing is that simple.”

“Well, I’m simply tired of answering your questions. How about that?” She got out of her seat and stepped into the aisle.

Max released the polished chrome clip on his seatbelt. “Come on.” He got up, too. Not liking the way he crowded her, Emily stepped back. “You’ll feel better once you’ve showered and put on some clean clothes.”

“I doubt if a hundred showers will make me feel better,” she replied. “But, yes. I would like to shower and get on some fresh clothes.”

They’d been sitting close to the mahogany door leading to the aft cabin, and Max slid the door open, preceding her inside. The room contained a compact, but extremely efficient, high-tech office and second bathroom. Wall units discreetly housed a small conference table, and a couple of fairly comfortable beds.

He opened the narrow door to the bathroom and flicked on the light. Despite its small size, the bathroom, like the rest of the jet, was the height of both luxury and efficiency. Bronze mirrors covered the walls, plush carpet lay underfoot, and a man-sized, glass-enclosed, navy-and-gold tiled shower stood in the corner. The liquid soap in the dispenser was specially formulated with active enzymes. No smell, and it would remove any stain, particularly blood. But that was TMI for Emily right now. “There’s plenty of hot water,” he told her. “Take as long as you like. I’ll leave you something to change into when you’re done.”

“Okay.”

“Towels.” He removed several from the cabinet beneath the sink, placing them on the closed toilet seat. “Yell if you need anything.” Me for instance.

“I won’t.”

He stepped through the doorway. “I’ll be in the forward cabin.”

Her response was to slam the door in his face.

The moment she was alone, Emily’s knees gave way and she dropped to the carpeted floor. Arms wrapped around herself, she folded over at the waist, face pressed against her knees. The band of pressure across her chest was so tight she could barely breathe.

OhGodohGodohGod.

If Max had expected her to respond intelligently to one more question she would have started screaming and never stopped. Her stomach churned and her heart pounded so fast she thought she was going to pass out.

Eyes open or closed, her brain was filled to capacity with red. She’d had no idea blood was as bright, as shiny, as slick as what she’d seen in the Bozzatos’ kitchen. She’d never get the grotesque images out of her head.

Never.

Now, co-existing with those horrific images were images of the violence and terror of the gunfight in the streets of her neighborhood. The world gone mad.

As sickening as it had been to see the blood and gore there, she didn’t know those men. Nothing could compare to what had happened to Franco and his family.

Details she hadn’t realized she’d absorbed at the time were coming back in a sickening flood of hideous, Technicolor images that turned her stomach and made the vise around her chest ratchet even tighter. Like a vile and vivid copy of a Jackson Pollock painting, the walls and ceiling had been splattered with blood. The savagery of the attack was almost incomprehensible.

It had taken a few seconds for Emily’s brain to process the scene. Janna—her neck practically sliced through—lay half-on, half-off the kitchen chair.

Emily’s stomach clenched. Janna’s lifeless eyes had been open, communicating the terror she’d suffered long before the life had drained from her body. Nonna Maria—Oh God! Nonna Maria’s blue dress had been black with wet blood. They’d cut her chest and face so that she’d been unrecognizable, then taken one leg of her walker and jabbed it into the gaping knife wound on her chest.

While Nonna Maria and Janna were victims of a blitz attack, Franco hadn’t been as fortunate. His body was riddled with stab wounds. Three of his fingers had been sliced off. Defensive wounds, she thought, sickly. In what was surely a fight for his life, Franco had grabbed at the knife in a futile gesture that had only added to the brutality. The killer had gone out of his way to inflict a maximum amount of wounds. Neck, chest, forearms, upper thighs.

As part of her training, she’d gone beyond the normal life drawing classes and studied nudes, and taken pre-med classes in anatomy. The assassin had purposefully hit every major artery in Franco’s body. With each frantic heartbeat, Franco’s blood had pulsed from his body.

Why would anyone slaughter an entire family? It didn’t make sense.

Bile rose in the back of her throat.

If someone had wanted them dead, why not a bullet to the head? Why the massacre?

Why? Why? Why?

She pressed her forehead hard against her knees. God. She wished she could at least cry to relieve some of the intense pressure squeezing her chest. But though her eyes burned with unshed tears the situation was way beyond crying.

Somehow she’d brought that on the Bozzato family. How or why she didn’t know. But there was no doubt in her mind that, but for her, they’d all be alive right now. A raw, painful sob caught between her chest and throat, but there were no cathartic tears to ease their path.

Emily pressed her clenched fists hard into her diaphragm where an ever-tightening band squeezed so hard she could barely draw a breath. Folding over on herself she rocked, unable to contain the overwhelming pain that had accumulated over the last several weeks.

Her teeth chattered. Cold. Cold. Cold. She couldn’t get warm. It was as if the whole emptiness of her was filled with brittle shards of ice. Slivers that sliced and cut her deep inside.

Intense, unrelenting emotion had been building, giving her no time to decompress or figure things out before the next God-awful thing body-slammed her emotions.

Daniel’s death, followed by the break-in, followed by the emotional whirlwind of Max’s return, followed by the Bozzatos’ grisly murders, followed by the attempted kidnapping and gunfight in the streets had left her emotionally reeling.

She should get up, she thought vaguely as she pressed her face against her knees and rocked. In a minute or two when she was sure she could stand without screaming. A sob ripped up her throat, followed by another. She didn’t even attempt to stop them no matter how badly they hurt.

“Christ—” Strong hands closed around her shoulders, jolting her back to her surroundings. Max pulled her to her feet in midsob. Eyes more green than hazel met her startled tear-drenched gaze with such compassion Emily’s heart wrenched. Tears clogged her throat as he wrapped her in his arms, holding her tightly.

“I—P—please g—g—” She didn’t trust herself to finish. She wanted to climb inside him where she’d feel warm and safe. Insane. Max wasn’t safe. Far from it.

“Ah, sweetheart.” He wiped her wet cheek with a gentle thumb, then cradled the back of her head in his palm and pulled her wet face against his chest, his fingers tangled in her hair. He rubbed a big, warm hand up and down her back in a sweetly tender attempt at consolation.

For a moment she felt too brittle to accept that comfort, but after a moment her body recognized the safe haven he offered and she responded by wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. Fisting the back of his shirt, Emily pressed her cheek against his chest and cried in jerky sobs that hurt her throat.

“Yes, that’s right,” he murmured, pressing his lips against her hair as he cradled her against the furnace heat of his body. “Get it out. Let it go.”

She wanted him to leave her alone until she could get a grip on her emotions. She wanted him to hold and comfort her. Hell. She didn’t know what she wanted at the moment.

Yes she did.

She wanted Max.

Emily tightened her grip on the back of his shirt and lifted her head. She looked up at him through a blur of tears. “I-I’ll be o-okay in a m-minute.” She would if she could get her feet under her emotionally and pull herself together. Right now that wasn’t even close to a possibility.

“Yeah,” Max told her gently. “But in the meantime let me take care of you, okay?” His tone belied the taut planes of his face, and the grim set of his lips. “Let’s get your clothes off so you can take a shower, okay?”

“In a m-minute.” For a moment she rested against him, drawing in his quiet strength. She’d hit an emotional wall and she didn’t have the strength to fight it. She was drained, and tired of being frightened. She wanted to forget everything and shut off her brain.

But of course when her brain woke up again, everything would be right where it had been before. What she had to do was pull herself together, she knew that better than most. She made an effort to push him away. It was a pretty puny effort, she admitted, as her eyes welled again. Having him here, now, when she was at her most vulnerable, was dangerous.

But God, it was seductive, too.

“Make love to me.” Standing on her toes, Emily wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. She didn’t want gentle. She didn’t even want emotion. Just sex. Hard fast driving sex until she couldn’t think or feel any more.

“No. Fuck me.”

He froze, and for a moment she thought he was going to resist. He didn’t, thank God. He looked down at her for the space of several erratic heartbeats, his eyes a hard, glittering green. The look was hot enough to make her blood race like quicksilver through her veins. He was going to take her now. Here. Standing pressed against the tiny sink, in the equally tiny bathroom.

A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth as he lowered his head, his hands splayed possessively on her back, drawing her flush against him. She felt his hardness, and shifted against him as her lips parted beneath his.

But instead of ravishing her the way she wanted him to do, Max’s mouth closed over hers in a slow, hot kiss that made her ache. She whimpered as his tongue sought and found the slick velvety recess of her mouth. His kiss curled around her jangled senses as sweetly as warm honey. Tightening her arms around his neck Emily relished the deepening of the kiss, but she wanted more.

She wanted him to fuck her. To batter her body and leave her limp and satiated and without a cognizant thought. She wanted him. Harder. Faster. Still, the maddeningly slow thorough exploration made her heart hammer, and her body burn.

Max didn’t give her what she was asking for, he gave her what she needed.

Tenderness. Understanding.

He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her jaw. His mouth trailed up to her ear, and the damp heat of his breath made her shudder. And all the while he cradled her protectively in his arms.

She was vaguely aware when he removed his hand from her back, and a moment later she heard the rush of water. He’d reached over and turned on the shower. Bringing his hand back, he wove his fingers in her hair, while the other slid down to cup her bottom. If he was trying to calm her, it wasn’t working. His touch made something deep inside her spiral more tightly. She deepened the kiss. Made it harder. Hotter.

Kissing him shamelessly, her fingers gripped his hair to hold him where she wanted him. Not caring if he knew how desperately she needed this connection. This affirmation of life. His erection, trapped behind the zipper of his pants, nudged her mound, sending shards of sensation to her every nerve ending, making her hypersensitive and already so aroused she knew she wouldn’t need much to push her over the edge. Moisture gathered between her legs, and her nipples, crushed against the hard plane of his chest, ached.

“Help me forget,” she whispered against his lips. “Just for a few minutes, help me forget.”

His hands bracketed her face, and drawing her mouth up to his, he kissed her with controlled gentleness as he crowded her backward until he had her pressed between the furnace of his body and the cool porcelain sink.

“Lift your arms,” he murmured against her eagerly seeking mouth as he reached down and pulled her sweater up. The wet wool did nothing to cool her burning skin as he yanked the garment over her head one-handed, tossing it somewhere on the floor behind him.

“Come back.” She grabbed the front of his damp T-shirt in both hands and tugged. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“You first.” He tugged down her pants and thong while he bent his dark head and his mouth found her nipple. He sucked hard as he shoved her garments down her legs. Her back arched as she kicked her feet free.

“Hurry. Hurry. I want it hard and fast and now, Max. Right now.”

“Hold that thought,” he murmured, his lips twitching as he backed her into the shower, then followed her into the stall. His big body crowded her against the cool tiled wall beneath the heavy beat of the showerhead as the stall filled with steam.

Emily closed her eyes and let the hot water beat on her head and down her back as Max pumped shampoo into his hand from a dispenser on the tiled wall. He gently put her from him, and lathered her hair. Murmuring a protest, she nevertheless closed her eyes, staying where she was. Hot water sluiced down her back, tickling as it ran down her legs.

“Lift your face,” he instructed, positioning her to rinse the lather out of her hair. “Keep your eyes closed,” he instructed, as he gently washed the blood off her skin, then rinsed the soap off her cheeks with his wet hands.

He bathed her from top to bottom while the water beat on her back in a stupefying rhythm that lulled her into a kind of a trance. Her mind told her that Max’s touch was efficient and impersonal, but her body begged to differ. Max was keeping her at a high level of arousal. Her entire body was vibrating like a tuning fork as he turned her into the spray, lathering and rinsing her back.

“You do k-know,” she mumbled as he turned her around then knelt before her, lifting her foot on his thigh. “That you’re in here with all your clothes on, right?” She grabbed his shoulder as she teetered on one foot.

“I noticed.” His voice was as dry as he was wet. His clothes lovingly molded to his body, his dripping hair was flattened against his skull and neck, showing off the sharp planes of his features, making his eyes look as dark and fathomless as a mountain pool.

He stroked his hand slowly up her calf, then bent to press a kiss to the inside of her knee. When he licked and kissed a path up the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh the sensation made her shudder and burn.

“I’ve thought of nothing but tasting you for months,” he admitted hoarsely, his tongue cool as it slid across her shower-warmed skin.

“Please—” she whispered in a raw, almost unrecognizable voice as she found herself leaning against the tiles, Max’s head between her legs, his large hands cupping her ass.

A hot electric pulse shot through her body as his mouth explored more intimately and he tasted and explored with his slick, hard tongue. Her short nails dug into his broad shoulders as she tried to maintain her balance in a watery world gone hazy.

Her breasts ached, and she cupped one, pinching the aching hardness of her nipple between her fingers as Max’s mouth brought her to a hard, fast orgasm.

Shaken and limp she leaned against the wall, watching him as he rose to tower over her. She clung to him, her fingers digging into the corded, water-slick muscles of his shoulders as he kept eye contact and yanked down the zipper of his sodden jeans.

Grabbing fistfuls of his T-shirt she pulled it up his body and over his head, then grabbed his hair in her fists and pulled him back to kiss her. His laughter was muffled by her mouth, but she felt the vibration all the way through her body.

He pulled away to finish unzipping his jeans and finally—finally—sprang free. Heavy, thick, rigid. And right now—all hers. She reached for him greedily, cupping his heavy sex as he kicked off the rest his wet clothes.

“Bed,” he said, taking her mouth in a kiss that left no doubt in Emily’s mind about what was going to happen next.

When he lifted his mouth from hers to drag in a heavy breath, she demanded, “Now,” and pulled his mouth back to hers. Wrapping one leg around his narrow flank, she tried to position him where she was once again throbbing and aching.

Max bit back a laughing groan as Emily tried to climb his body. “Bed,” he repeated, pulling both her legs up around his waist, and supporting her sweet, creamy ass in his palms.

She buried her face against his neck and gave a gurgle of laughter. “I hope we don’t hit an air pocket.”

“What a way to go.” He exited the shower with her in his arms. “Off.” He paused just outside the glass door to let her shut off the water. The tiny bathroom was jungle-steamy, and sliding open the narrow door into the aft cabin let in a draft of much cooler air. Emily bit the side of his neck, making him groan.

He placed her on the narrow bed he’d pulled down from the wall unit earlier, then followed her down. Her legs were still wrapped around his hips, her heel digging into the flexing muscles of his ass.

Sliding his hands up the sensitive inside of her arms, he pushed them against the mattress, then twined his fingers with hers on either side of her head. Her big brown eyes had lost the dazed, terrified sheen he’d hated to see there earlier, now they looked up at him with a fierceness, and a determination that made his pulses race, and his cock throb.

She kissed a path down his chest as far as she could go. “I need it fast and hard.”

His lips twitched. “Hmm,” he murmured, bringing her head up so he could kiss her throat. “I believe I made a note of that earlier.”

She scowled, wiggling her hips under his, which made his body tighten and his teeth clench. “Well?” she demanded, narrow-eyed. Crossing her ankles in the small of his back, she pulled him tightly against her body. She’d never been shy about what she wanted. Thank God that hadn’t changed, he thought taking her mouth in a kiss that stole his own breath and made his heart trip-hammer in his chest.

He dragged his mouth off hers, and lifted his head. He was done teasing. “I want you,” he said roughly as he guided himself to her entrance. She was wet, her muscles already clenching as he slid two fingers inside her.

“Have m…”

More chatting than he was used to. Max rammed inside her wet sheath. Arms around his neck, Emily buried her face against his chest, and shuddered. “Haaa—Don’t—m—” She came so fast he knew she’d been hanging on a precipice.

His own orgasm was blinding and instantaneous, and robbed him completely of breath. It was a few minutes before he could speak.

“Fast enough for you?” His fingers combed through her wet tangled hair, holding her tightly as he slanted his mouth over hers.

Her lips clung as he lifted his head. She brushed a quick kiss to his mouth. “Hmm. I’m not sure I’m done with you yet.”

“Insatiable.”

“With you,” she said running her hand across his torso and the line of hair that traveled down to where their bodies were still joined. “I think I am.”

Wrapping his arms around her, Max cradled her against his chest, their damp skin slick and binding them together. He brushed a kiss to her hair. “Sleep.”

She closed her eyes and dropped into dreamless oblivion.

He’d done what she’d asked. Made her forget. For an hour.

But forgetting didn’t make the problems, or the questions, go away. Not by a long shot.

“Fucking hell,” Max whispered harshly into the darkness. He lay there, Emily’s damp body curled against his, their hearts picking up each other’s rhythm so that the two heartbeats were like one. “Fucking, fucking hell.”

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for months. A dangerous distraction in his line of work. Now here he was again. Screwing up by screwing her. No, he thought, a chill traveling through his body. He hadn’t just screwed Emily Greene.

They’d made love.

He needed to get this business with her resolved and walk away. Fast. Her hair, tickling his nose, smelled—impossibly—of roses. “Triple fuck.”