And then there was the primitive beauty of the quiet forest, the swift rush of the river and the idyllic pool hidden in a clearing he thought might never have known a human footprint until his.
Back home, the Agency just a bad memory, money piling in from his new business, he’d phoned the guy from DOD, asked if he was still interested in selling.
He was, and he’d named a price that seemed right. Actually, any price would have seemed right back then. Matthew was still awakening in the middle of the night with images of Alita’s violated body burning his brain.
Somehow or other, he’d thought going to the house that was now his, giving himself over to a place where time and evil had no meaning, would dispel his demons.
He’d never found out if that were true.
Returning to Colombia had begun to look about as reasonable as returning to a nightmare.
Now, the valley seemed the only safe place.
Something was wrong with this entire setup. Nobody had told him the truth. You got used to that, when you were in Cloak and Dagger Land, but he wasn’t on that turf anymore.
The colonel had asked him to find his fiancée.
Simple enough, or so it had seemed. But the colonel’s fiancée kept insisting she wasn’t his fiancée, and the colonel seemed less concerned with what might have happened to the woman he supposedly loved than he was with locating her.
Wouldn’t her welfare be paramount? This was a big country. Most of it was beautiful, but parts of it were more dangerous than Mogadishu at midnight.
How come the colonel had never once expressed concern over Mia being out there, alone?
Then there was Mia. How come she’d tried to smuggle dope? How come she was on the run? If the answer was cocaine, Matthew would have found it by now.
And, finally, the million dollar question.
How come all he could think about was getting Mia Palmieri naked on a bed?
Matthew brought the SUV to a stop outside the triple doors of the garage. He took the keys from the ignition, found the one for the front door and got out from behind the wheel.
“End of the line,” he said. “Everybody out.”
Mia didn’t even blink. She sat, motionless, hands knotted in her lap, eyes straight ahead. Was every step going to be a battle?
He went around the truck and opened her door.
“Here’s the deal. You get out and walk, or I pull you out and toss you over my shoulder. Since I’m tired and hungry and generally pissed off, I’m probably not going to be particularly gentle about it but hey, the decision is yours.”
He almost laughed at the look she gave him, but she wasn’t stupid. She undid her seat belt and started to step down.
Matthew caught her in his arms.
“Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said with a hard smile.
“Thank you so much for your concern.”
Her words were like little bee stings, sharp and meant to hurt, but he was coming to expect that kind of toughness from her. The further she got, mentally, from the shock of finding him in her room in that sleazy hotel, the stronger she became.
He’d have to change that.
Wasn’t it a good thing he’d discovered the way to do it? he thought, and he gathered her against him and kissed her.
It wasn’t the kind of kiss a man gives a woman who stirs his heart; it was the kind a man gives a woman he wants to dominate. Matthew held nothing back. Mouth, teeth, tongue…his kiss was savage.
Mia reacted, as he’d intended, with fear. She twisted in his arms, pounded her fists against his shoulders, but he was relentless, holding her so tightly against him that her struggles only brought her breasts and hips in closer contact with his body.
Somehow, she managed to free her mouth long enough to gasp for air and then call him a name he’d rarely heard a woman use.