Double Impact

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MICHAL STARED down at her. He wanted to rant at her. To demand answers. But his heart would not allow him to press her under the circumstances. He glared at Carlos’s motionless body. The traitor.

But then, what did he expect in this world of murder for hire?

Squashing all emotion so that he could do what must be done, he offered his hand. Shaking, she took it, and he assisted her to her feet. “Go to your room.”

She wiped at the tears dampening her face with the backs of her hands and nodded mutely before fleeing the scene of betrayal and death.

Michal leaned down and picked up the Bible lying sprawled on the floor. Had one of his men brought it here? Frowning, he skimmed through its pages before setting it aside on the table. He wanted answers. Carlos’s treachery he had suspected for weeks now, was not surprised to see it reach fruition. The others, however, were a definite surprise.

Leaving the dead traitor where he lay, Michal stalked into the great room expecting to be met with drawn weapons and suspicions.

“I tried to stop him,” Thomas said quietly. “But he was intent on interrogating her.”

“Interrogating her?” Michal demanded, his tone as deadly as the weapon he still held in his right hand, the barrel still warm from his recent kill. “You call his actions ‘interrogation’?”

Thomas shrugged but remained silent.

Michal scanned their faces, making direct eye contact with each one of them in turn. “Is there anyone else who would wish to interrogate me?” He pressed them with a long, hard look, ensuring they understood the depth of his fury. “For if you question Amira, you question me.”

Not a single word was uttered in defiance of his statement; nor was any move made to overtake him.

“A good man,” Michal said then, “is dead because he chose to betray me. If any of you-” he surveyed face after face once more “-prefers to take your loyalties elsewhere, then do so. I will not tolerate disloyalty.”

“We are with you,” the Spaniard said. “Carlos tried to convince us that you had grown weak, but we did not believe him.”

“I only have one question,” another said as he settled onto one of the sofas. “How are we going to split Carlos’s cut of the Libyan mission?”

The room burst into laughter, shattering the formidable tension in a heartbeat. Whatever Carlos had hoped to achieve had vanished just as quickly as he had.

“I can assure you,” Michal said with a smile, his relief complete now, “all will be satisfied.”

More laughter punctuated the promise.

“Thomas.” Michal turned his attention to his most trusted man. The only one in the group who had even attempted to stand up to Carlos. For that, Michal was grateful. “Take two men with you into the city and see if you can find the dark-haired man Carlos spoke of. If he is truly with the CIA I want to know about his business here.” He shifted his attention to the Spaniard now. “Take care of Carlos. Already the stench of his deceit pollutes the air.”

With a single inclination of his head, two more of his men joined the Spaniard in his mission.

Satisfied that all was as it should be, Michal left the men to their tasks.

The stunning revelation he had learned from Ron shook him once more. Why had she not told him about the child? How could she lie with him and keep that life-altering secret to herself? He considered that she had lived with the American, the psychiatrist, for two years without full commitment. Anger burned low in his belly at the thought of her with another man.

Was that what she was doing here? Holding back on him? The possibility that the CIA had had someone close by since he brought her here twisted in his gut. Could he have allowed her to fool him yet again? Was everything-the two long years of separation, the amnesia, the vulnerability-all an elaborate set up to finish what she’d started?

Maybe he was wrong about her. She might not be vulnerable at all. The woman who had fooled him once before might simply be a talented actress.

For that matter, perhaps Carlos had been right on that score.

Perhaps Michal was under a spell.

AMI STRIPPED OFF her torn blouse and stuffed it into the trash basket. She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and winced at the red welts left by her attacker’s strong fingers. She shuddered when she thought of Carlos lying dead on the floor in the kitchen.

How many people had died here?

She trembled and chafed her arms against the chill of fear. Would she be next? She hadn’t missed the fury in Michal’s eyes. Did he somehow see her as responsible for Carlos’s death? She had caused Raoul’s. She stilled, searching her emotions, attempting to separate fact from presumption. Was her presence what had made Carlos start undermining Michal’s authority?

Closing her eyes, she forced away the thoughts. This was crazy. All of it!

Why hadn’t she grabbed Fran Woodard by the arm and rushed to her car the moment the woman arrived?

There had been time. Of course she hadn’t known that then, but there definitely had been. No one had been watching her. They had been too busy being brainwashed by Carlos. Dammit. She could have escaped…could have been rushing toward the American embassy this very moment. That is, of course, if Fran had gone along with the idea. Though Ami had seen definite sympathy in her eyes, the woman was CIA…she would probably have told her the same thing Tanner had: she had no choice but to stay and finish this.

She flattened her palms on the rim of the basin and sighed in self-disgust. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of business. She didn’t know how to seize an opportunity and make the best of it. At least, not these kinds of opportunities.

Pushing away her worries and uncertainties for the time being, she trudged to the armoire and dragged out a new blouse. Any moment now Michal would come into the room demanding answers. For whatever reason, he was angry with her. She had to deal with him first, then she could mull over the worry that Fran would most likely tell Tanner she had no intention of helping them kill Michal.

She pressed her forehead against the cool, wooden surface of the armoire and battled the emotions that threatened to well inside her all over again. She couldn’t think about her baby right now. She absolutely would not admit defeat. She would find a way to get back to him. But she would have to do it on her own.

An urge to tell Michal about his son, to share that wonder with him, clutched dangerously at her heart. But she couldn’t do that. To tell Michal about Nicholas would be to sentence her son to this life.

That, above all else, was the one thing she was infinitely certain she could not do.

When the door to the bedroom opened, she stood in the middle of the room waiting for whatever was to come.

Judging by the intensity in Michal’s eyes, he was still plenty angry.

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. He had, actually, but not the kind of hurt she felt certain to which Michal referred. She massaged her throat, subconsciously contradicting her response.

He paused only inches away and tugged her hand from her throat. “You will have more bruises,” he commented, surveying the red welts on her flesh.

She nodded. “Thank you for stopping him.” It sounded lame in afterthought, but she was immensely grateful for what he’d done. Her fate had already been decided by Carlos.

Michal’s gaze zoomed in on hers like twin piercing laser beams. “Carlos believed you were hiding something.” He inclined his head and studied her eyes, her face, more closely. “Are you hiding anything from me?”

She tamped down the automatic need to stiffen, to avert her eyes. He was watching for those very warning signals. “No.” The word didn’t come out quite as firmly as she would have liked, but she’d gotten it past the constriction in her throat. That was something. Her heart knocked brutally against her rib cage. He knew something. She was sure of it.

There was no way to know which of her secrets he’d uncovered. If she gave away the wrong one…

“Why do you still question me, Michal?” she demanded, hoping to shift the context of the discussion. She lifted her chin and glared at him defiantly. “If you suspect me of some deceit, why didn’t you let Carlos do what he would? Surely he would have extracted whatever truth you believe I’m hiding.”

Fury flashed in those midnight-black eyes. “Answer the question. Do you or do you not have something you wish to tell me?”

Though she could not recall anything about her life before two years ago, other than the dreams of her with this man, Ami couldn’t imagine that she had ever used her body to keep herself out of trouble. She had lived, until quite recently, in a very safe environment with a man who believed women to be equal to men in every way. She had a respected career as a nurse and she was the loving mother to a toddler. An ache pulsed through her when Nicholas’s face filtered through her mind.

The very idea of whoring herself to achieve some cause…of setting up a man for betrayal…of betraying her own father, was utterly alien to her. It simply couldn’t be possible. The events she had witnessed the past two weeks were like scenes in some action-adventure movie or high-tech video game. None of it felt real.

But it was.

She looked deeply into Michal’s eyes. And she had to do whatever it took to stay in the game.

No, she didn’t want to help the CIA or anyone else harm Michal.

No, she couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible, directly or indirectly, for anyone else’s life.

But she was damn sure going to take responsibility for her own survival.

In this game, she was on her own. There was no way forward, that she could see, and no way back.

There was only now.

And right now she needed Michal Arad to need her. She wanted him to trust her whether she deserved it or not. Most of all, she longed to live at least two more days…time enough to figure out how to accomplish the two most important missions of her life.

She must find a way to get back to her child if only for a moment. To hold him just one more time before she died.

But first, she had to figure out how to save Michal’s life without alerting the CIA to her new stand.

And all of that hinged on one person. Fran Woodard. If Fran warned Tanner, Ami was doomed.

For now, though, she had a more pressing matter to which to attend.

Earning Michal’s trust again now that he’d had to kill his right-hand man for her.

“I have nothing to hide from you,” she told him in the most sensual tone she could muster with the image of death still indelibly seared in her brain.

Something like regret flickered in those sinfully dark pools focused solely upon her. Fear that she’d somehow said the wrong thing made her heart stutter. But she couldn’t stop now.

“You pulled me back into a world of which I have no memory.” Her gaze locked fully with his, despite the worry that he would read the confusion and fear churning inside her. “You tell me all the despicable things I did before and how a good portion of the world, including you, have reason to want me dead. But you allow me to live.” She tried without success to shake off the surreal quality that very nearly overwhelmed her. It all felt so impossible…but it was real.

He was real.

And he held the power over her very existence.

“And still you question me?” She turned her back on him, praying her ruse would work to divert his focus. “What makes you any better than Carlos?” she added for good measure as she folded her arms over her breasts.

She heard the raggedness of his breath as he exhaled. Afraid to even drag in a breath of her own, she held absolutely still and waited for his reaction.

“I trust that you will tell me anything you believe I should know,” he said finally, his tone gentler now but laced with a definite defeat that she would never have associated with the dangerous man known as Michal Arad.

Facing him once more, she struggled to read his eyes, but they quickly shuttered, refusing her access to his true feelings. Her chest felt suddenly heavy with sadness then. This was his world…a world of kill or be killed…of distrust and constantly looking over one’s shoulder. As much fear as he could inspire in others, he was just a man, sentenced to a prison of living for the day with no promise of tomorrow. For that, she wept inside, her heart squeezing, bleeding for him. She suddenly wanted to know all she had forgotten about this man. Where had he come from? What had happened in his life to shape him into the ruthless killer he was today? She resisted the urge to shake her head. Not totally ruthless, she argued with herself. There was a human compassion in Michal Arad that none of the others with whom he associated possessed.

That was the part that attracted her to him.

The part that promised hope.

“There is one thing I’d like you to know,” she said as she reached for the buttons of his shirt.

He stilled her hands by covering them with his own. Her gaze bumped into his and she saw resistance there. He didn’t want to be seduced. Here was a man accustomed to doing the seducing. Well, this time it was going to be different.

“And what is that?” he asked cautiously.

She twined her fingers with his and moved closer still. “That I need you more than I’ve ever needed you before.” She pulled his hands down to her waist and settled them there so that she could return to the task of releasing the buttons of his shirt. It startled her to realize just how true the words she’d spoken were.

She did need him.

And, as crazy as it sounded, he needed her.

She touched the bronzed skin revealed as his shirt, free of the buttons restricting it, gaped open. Her breath caught and heat instantly shot her internal thermometer into the red.

“I killed a man for you today and I would do it again if necessary. But I do not take death lightly. Do not play games with me now, Ami,” he whispered savagely, his hands tightening on her waist.

Hearing him call her Ami instead of Amira sent a thrill through her. But it was the ferocity of the fire in his eyes that undid her the most.

“Michal.” She took his handsome face in her hands and was caught off guard all over again at how very much her son looked like him. “This is not a game.” She pulled his mouth down to hers and whispered, “It’s very, very real.”

She pressed her lips to his and kissed him with all the desperation exploding inside her. The exotic taste that was purely Michal assaulted her senses, weakened her knees. He pulled her closer, sensing her need for support.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured between kisses.

She pulled back just far enough to rip open his shirt and bare the rest of that amazing chest to her. “What about you?” she asked, then nibbled his full lower lip. “I wouldn’t want to cause you discomfort, either.”

He didn’t bother answering with words. Instead, proving his physical prowess in spite of his injury, he lifted her, taking most of her weight with his good arm, and carried her to the bed.

For a long while they simply stood there, next to the enormous bed still rumpled from the previous night’s tossing and turning, and stared into each other’s eyes. There was so much she wanted to know…to say…to believe. Words would never be enough to convey what she felt at that precise moment.

When they could no longer bear to merely look, they undressed each other slowly, the urgency taking a back seat to the more tender emotions neither of them could deny. Her blouse floated down to the floor. Shoes were kicked aside. His trousers as well as her slacks joined the tangle of attire scattered around them.

All that stood between them was the sheerest, most intimate of fabrics and soon those were gone, as well. The white bandage was stark against his dark skin, a startling reminder of how he had risked his life for hers. His broad shoulders looked powerful enough to hold up the world and she was so glad he carried the weight of hers for she was incapable of that enormous feat just now. The marvelously sculpted width narrowed into a lean, ribbed waist. The beat of her heart increased to a rapid staccato as her gaze moved over his well-endowed manhood and down those long, heavily muscled legs. Every part of him was perfectly formed.

She looked up into his eyes once more and found the same appreciation glimmering there that she felt. Her stomach tingled with the knowledge that her body pleased him, as well. She’d left off the bandage to support her ribs this morning and now she was glad for it.

Suddenly those strong arms wrapped around her and snuggled her body close to his. The nudge of his sex sent all sentimental thoughts and sensations scurrying away; there was only the undeniable need to have him buried deeply inside her.

He lowered her to the tousled bed and settled on all fours above her. Slowly, one lingering kiss at a time, he loved every welt, every bruise, every scrape on her flesh. Each flick of his tongue and tease of his lips sent shower after shower of heat and desire cascading along every square inch of her. That wicked mouth brushed the silken curls of her mound and she cried out with the intensity of it.

He parted her thighs and continued with his sensual torture. Using his tongue, his teeth and his lips, he suckled, nibbled and laved her to the very edge of orgasm. She wanted to beg him to stop, to plunge into her, but instead she urged him on, threading her fingers into this thick, dark hair, arching to meet him. One long finger slid inside her, making her feminine muscles contract wildly. She moaned her approval.

Another finger slipped inside, circled and rubbed. With two fingers deep inside her he suckled the budding part of her sex and sent her completely over the edge. She tensed as every sensory perception froze then focused entirely on that one part of her as wave after wave of sweet satiation flooded her. Her body grew limp with the heat of it.

She locked her legs around his and urged his hips toward hers. She needed him inside her now. To finish this the right way. Still, he held back; instead, taking more time to lave and suckle her breasts. Her fingers bit into his muscled arms, her hips rose to find fulfillment, but he denied her.

She was ready.

Michal peered into the blue eyes that had gone almost navy with desire. Lust glazed those wide depths, and it pleased him greatly to know he had taken her there. Her body arched like a bow once more, seeking to become one with his, but he held back, needing to see her like this a moment longer. To know, at this precise second, that she was completely his, body and soul.

The truth she had denied him only made him want her more. Common sense told him he shouldn’t trust her if she refused to tell him about the child, but her desperation made him understand. He knew desperation. Fool that he might be, he was certain he knew her.

She was his once more and that was all that mattered.

If he died tonight, having her at his side would make it worth the price.

With that thought he thrust fully into her hot, welcoming body. They cried out together and raw, primal pleasure quaked through them. He trembled and so did she.

His body burned with the need to spill his seed deep inside her…to make her with child again…to share every step of that momentous occasion with her this time.

Her hips rose to meet his every thrust, her gaze locked with his and in that moment of completion, when both their bodies reached the ultimate pinnacle, he knew that whatever happened tomorrow, tonight and the woman in his arms were all that mattered.

THAT NIGHT Michal made love to her twice more. Cocooned in his arms, Ami slept deeply, her body sated from their lovemaking. He held her tightly as if he feared she might somehow slip away during the night.

She dreamed of their time together before. Their lovemaking. The night Nicholas was conceived…on the eve of that dangerous mission.

She moaned, pushing away the next images that surfaced, but she couldn’t stop them. They tumbled in one over the other, dampening her skin with sweat…making her heart race…

HE WAS ON HIS KNEES. His olive skin and dark eyes contrasted sharply with his graying hair and his gauzy-white robe. Her gaze jerked back to his chest. The knife had been plunged deeply into his chest; blood soaked rapidly across the front of his white robe.

The pain in his eyes as he looked up at her shook her. “W-why?” he croaked.

She stared into those anguished eyes with no emotion except relief and then, suddenly she knew…

She stumbled back a step, her head shaking with the realization forming in her brain. Her eyes connected fully with his and she whispered, “Daddy?”

AMI BOLTED UPRIGHT in the bed, her lungs heaving against the lack of oxygen. She blinked in the darkness and the dream shattered into a thousand screaming pieces of agony.

Michal moved up beside her in the darkness, his arms going around her, comforting her.

“Are you all right?” he whispered hoarsely.

No.

Her heart thundered hard, but failed to send enough oxygen to her brain to ensure its proper function, leaving her unable to form the single syllable required to articulate that one word out loud.

She wasn’t all right. She would never be all right again.

She’d killed her father.