to recover what Caruso took from us. Not ignore my orders and wander off to indulge yourself.”
“But the scenario is almost exactly what you wanted,” Faris protested. “Caruso’s jealous girlfriend burst in on what will look like kinky sex. She shot him and his lover with her gun, threw it into the nearest Dumpster like the panicked amateur she is, and disappeared.”
“Faris.” Marcus’s voice was ominously soft. “That’s not what we—”
“I know where the mold is,” Faris broke in. “I’ll get it for you now. What difference does it make if she disappears or dies? She’s the obvious suspect. The police have no reason to look any further. Let them waste their energy looking for her. They’ll never find her.”
“Faris.” Marcus’s reproach was palpable. “That’s not the issue. My trust is the issue. I invested a huge amount of energy and money in your training. I made you the best of the best. And like a spoiled child, you say no?” He paused. “Perhaps you’re less worthy than I thought.”
Faris’s fingers traced the poignant hollow beneath her rib cage, where her vital organs lay protected only by smooth muscle, silky skin. Normally, Marcus’s anger would distress him to the point of vomiting, but with his red angel at his side, he felt untouched by it. Almost…free. “I’ve never asked for anything for myself before,” he said, in a dreamy voice. “I always do everything you say. Always.”
Marcus’s sigh was sharp and impatient. “We can’t risk our plans over something so banal. Women are expendable. No one knows this better than we. Be reasonable. I will give you ten of her. A hundred.”
No. There was not another one like her on the face of the earth. His red angel. Faris’s fingers feathered down to circle her hip bones.
“I am shocked at your attitude. The Callahan woman is worthless as anything but a prop. Finish the job. I want to hear the tragic conclusion of the Caruso/Callahan saga on the eleven PM news tonight. Failure is unacceptable. Do we understand each other? Faris?”
Faris broke the connection and turned his attention back to the girl. The cheap synthetic bedspread was not worthy of her. She should be lying on an altar of crimson velvet, draped with cloth of gold.
He checked her pulse, fingers lingering over the tender skin of her wrist. He prepared a dose of a drug that would keep her unconscious for two more hours and slid the needle tenderly into her arm.
He considered tying her to the bed, just in case he was delayed, but he was reluctant to start off their love affair by scaring her.
He wanted to be tender with her. Indulgent. Two hours was plenty of time to recover the mold for Marcus. A few minutes with Faris’s needles, and Caruso had been very forthcoming about where he’d left it.
This was a pathetically easy job, in fact. Almost beneath his dignity. If all went smoothly, he would not even have to torture her.
He hoped not. Faris was a master at the art of torture, but he preferred that she love him. If he had to torture her, things would be much more complicated. Women took things so personally.
Faris lingered by the bed, hating to leave her so soon after he had found her. He groped for his snake pendant, the symbol of his order, and lifted her head to place it around her neck, arranging it carefully between her perfect breasts. His most prized possession. He stroked the soft skin, the lush curves. There. Better. It was tangible proof of his commitment. It would protect her until his return. She looked perfect.
This ecstatic emotion made him giddy. Strong enough to bear even Marcus’s anger. He left the room, imagining how grateful and admiring she would be when he came back to wake her.
She owed her very existence to him. Every moment of her life was now his. She should be grateful to him for every breath she took.
A detailed and highly sensual fantasy of all the ways she would express her gratitude kept him pleasantly entertained as he drove.
Chapter
2
Seattle, Washington, eight months later
Dragon sinks into the ocean…
Davy McCloud’s body flowed through the form, unencumbered by conscious thought, in harmony with the ancient sequence of movements. Grab with dragon claw. Sink down to pull his phantom adversary to the ground. Breathe low and soft, to pull qi down into his vital organs and circulate it. His body was fluid and relaxed, his attention focused, mind, body and spirit in perfect equilibrium. Qi focused out through the eyes.
He was the dragon, the cloud where it formed, the ocean where it lived. Balanced on air. Suspended in space.
The door of the dojo made no sound as it opened, but his heightened senses felt every minute change in temperature and air currents. He recognized her energy without even turning. He knew the way it felt in the back of his head. Like the ringing of a zillion tiny bells.
Seconds later her scent hit him. Spicy. Ginger or clove. Woodsy, like cedar, with a hint of orange. Mouthwatering. It strengthened as she approached the tatami where he was practicing, and damned if he wasn’t making a tiger claw now, a downward ripping movement instead of the softer, circular dragon claw. He corrected himself instantly and took a split second to gather his concentration.
Dragon stretches out his left claw… she must have just finished teaching her aerobics class at the Women’s Wellness Center, the all-women gym next door. He’d heard the pounding music ease off a timeless infinity ago, which the tracking mechanism in his brain identified as about fifteen minutes. Deep into that remote no-man’s-land in his brain, he’d barely registered the high-pitched chatter of the women heading out of the gym into the pedestrian mall towards the parking lot, buzzed on endorphins.
And here she was. In his face. In his space.
Dragon stretches out his right claw… what the hell was she doing in here? He’d been so fucking careful to avoid her, and now his breathing was hard, too tense and dynamic, too high in the chest. His heart beat fast, thudding against his ribs as if he were afraid.
Concentrate, goddamnit. He softened his breathing, but that just let still more of her warm female scent into his lungs. Damp sweetness. Perfumed soap, shampoo, or whatever other female goop she smeared on her body, activated by the heat of exercise. If he turned and looked at her, her perfect skin would be glowing with a pearly sheen of sweat.
He did not look. He did not even look at her, and still his groin tightened. It made him furious with his own body.
Dragon grabs the rainbow… the bright pink spandex workout gear she was wearing jarred the corner of his eye as he turned. Distraction was just another challenge to face and overcome, he reminded himself. So were surges of irrational anger. He knew the drill. Dispassionately observe his reaction. Let it go. Move on.
He should welcome challenges to his concentration. It was just a mind game. Ideally, he should be able to maintain perfect focus even if the sky fell around his ears. Dragon stretches out his left claw…
Yeah, but the falling sky didn’t have that sweet, spicy smell that punched through his defences like armor-piercing rounds.
He spun around, leg extended, and couldn’t help but note again that she was wearing the hot pink two-piece leotard, a seductive French-cut
