Troublemaker by Linda Howard
“Tell me if you like this,” she murmured, bracing her hands on the bed on each side of him and rising to a crouch so their only point of contact was his penis inside her. Slowly she rose and sank back down, watching his face.
He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “God almighty.”
She did it again, slow rising, slow falling. “Does that mean yes?”
His fists clenched on the mattress beneath them. “It feels like you’re going down on me.” His voice was restricted, as if he could barely talk.
“I am,” she purred. “Just not with my mouth.”
Then she concentrated on the task at hand. At some point the phone did ring, but she and Morgan barely noticed. He wasn’t the only one getting pleasure from the position; every time she sank down on him, her nerve endings erupted in small explosions of pleasure. Her climax edged closer with every downstroke, and she slowed to draw it out, to wring out every ounce of sensation.
It was torture, but the most pleasurable kind imaginable. Her nipples tightened and stood out, chills of ecstasy running over her skin. Such mutual pleasure sent her mental walls tumbling; the words “I love you” trembled on the edge of her consciousness, thought but left unsaid because such words were either a gift or a burden and she wasn’t certain which they would be to him. Rather than take the chance she said them silently, acknowledging how much he meant to her, letting herself savor the moment, just this moment, of loving.
But no matter how much she slowed, eventually the pleasure built to such a point that she was almost paralyzed, trembling on the edge of climax. Morgan was a taut, muscular arch beneath her, his teeth clenched as he fought not to come before she did. Her inner muscles were clenched so tightly around him that moving either up or down would likely end it for both of them. She moaned, deep and shaky.
He broke, clamping his big hands on her hips and driving her down to the hilt on his thick penis. She gave a quick, gasping cry as her orgasm gathered and then surged, swamping her entire body with sensations so intense she was lost to everything else. His hips bucked beneath her, intensifying the spasms. She thought he was swearing through his clenched teeth but the words were muted by her fast, heavy heartbeats pounding in her chest, her ears, throbbing in her throat.
The spasms began to subside, coming slower and slower, her body jerking with each one. Gradually she folded over, wilting on him, until she was lying draped on top of him as limp as a ragdoll kitten. His breathing was fast and heavy but so was hers, and within seconds their bodies had synchronized, breaths and hearts.
After a minute he managed to move his hand, stroking it over her back and ass.
“Damn, woman,” he muttered. That was all, but she felt those two words down to her bones.
Getting enough strength built up to get out of bed took another few minutes, then they did a quick cleanup and headed downstairs to her desktop for Morgan to view the photos. At least she assumed they were on the desktop because looking at photos on a phone wasn’t the best way to make an identification.
She took Tricks out and returned to find Morgan with a cup of coffee in his hand and one ready for her. He was waiting for her before he began looking at the photographs. Hurriedly she fed Tricks, then they went to the computer.
He’d turned on the burner phone and slipped it into his pocket, because there wasn’t any way to anticipate which phone Axel would call: her home phone, her cell, or Morgan’s cell. “Be my guest,” she said, gesturing to the desktop. He sat down, pulled up her email, and clicked on the one with an attachment. She leaned over and looked at the address of the sender: it was a woman’s name, using a Gmail account.
“Is that Axel?” she asked.
“I assume so. I’m guessing he set up a separate account from some hole in the wall he has, or some phone registered to God only knows who.” He clicked to open the attachment, and the little wheel started spinning to show the command was processing. Then photos started opening up on the screen, and Morgan began scrolling down.
The photos had been taken in a variety of environments: on the street, in restaurants, in a courtyard of what she suspected was an embassy, going by the flags. She didn’t ask how the photographs had been attained. Another man had been Photoshopped into each photo, a dark-haired man in a suit. The Photoshop was obvious because the image was the same in every instance.
“Who’s that?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder to tap the screen.
“Dexter Kingsley. This way I can compare heights, going by what I remember from the man in the blue shirt going below on the boat, and Kingsley coming up. I have good spatial memory.”
She just bet he did. “These are the foreign agents whose whereabouts can’t be accounted for that day?”
“Mostly. I’d guess there are a few domestic troublemakers in here, knowing Axel; he’d throw in anyone he found suspicious.”
He took his time looking at each photo, comparing the two men’s heights and, she supposed, such things as shape of head, whatever he could have noticed at such a distance. She didn’t see how he could make a definitive ID under such circumstances, but this was about narrowing down the possibilities.
Each image was numbered, twenty-three in all. There was no identification of the people in any of the photographs; he wasn’t concerned with that. Axel would know who they were. Morgan paused at image number eight, scrolled down through nine, ten, eleven, twelve, paused at thirteen, then scrolled through the remaining nine. He went back to thirteen, then back to eight. Thirteen again. Eight. He went back and forth a couple of times, then tapped the screen. “Eight.”
She had no idea what parameters he was using. To her none of the men resembled each other, though they did all have gray hair. Number eight’s hair was kind of iron gray, neatly cut and shaped to his head.
“That’s the most likely prospect, huh? What made you decide?” Eight and thirteen looked nothing alike facially, so there had to be something else that had made him go back and forth between the two.
“The shape of the head, and the way his ears are set.”
“Damn, what kind of eyesight do you have?” she said, both startled and amazed. From the distance he’d said he was at, detail had to be at a minimum—at least for her, and she had twenty-twenty eyesight.
“Twenty-fifteen in my right eye, a little better than that in my left eye. Comes in handy.”
“Wow. I can see that. I can also see I need to put on makeup every morning before you get up.”
He slipped his hand around her right thigh. “No, you don’t. You look great. Besides, if you’re naked, I’d never notice if you have on makeup or not.” He didn’t look up at her, but she could see a grin tugging at his mouth.
She rolled her eyes and gave him a light slap on the shoulder, though inwardly she was pleased that he liked her naked. “Thanks a lot. Anyway, back to business. Do you know who this guy is?”
“Not a clue. I’m not in the information-gathering side of the business.” He reached for his cell, and it rang right on cue. He hit the button and put the call on speaker.
“Why the fuck didn’t you answer the phone?” Axel barked.
“Couldn’t get to it,” Morgan said neutrally.
There was a pause, then Axel erupted in a yell: “You son of a bitch, are you screwing my sister?”
The surge of rage made Bo feel as if her eyes were popping out of her head. He’d always had that instant effect on her. She leaned over, slammed her fist down on the desk and yelled back, “I’m not your damn sister! And, no, he isn’t screwing me! I’m screwing him! I’ve worn him down to a dried-up husk of his former self! I—”
“Did you put this call on speaker?” Axel interrupted, his tone aghast.
“She’s the woman you trusted to save my life,” Morgan retorted. “Damn right I did. Plus she’s in it now, so she deserves to know what’s going on.” Annoyance and laughter were fighting in his expression, though Bo was at a loss to guess exactly what was triggering what. She’d called him a
“It’s my business if—which photograph was it?” Axel’s tone changed in mid-sentence, illustrating exactly what was most important to him.
“Number eight.”
“Shit.”
“Shit, what?”
“Of all the possibilities I sent, that’s probably the worst outcome. Are you sure?”
“Not a hundred percent. I’m going by the shape of the head, the ears. I’m sure that of the pictures you sent, that’s the closest match.”
“Okay, good enough. Those are the ones we couldn’t get a definite location on for that time frame, so I’m calling it a hit.”
“Russian?”
“Yeah. Keying on them was a good idea. He’s Foma Yartsev, high-ranking SVR. A secret meeting with someone on the HASC is definitely something they’d kill to cover up.”
“Maybe Yartsev was the one who ordered the hit if he didn’t want it known who he was meeting.”
“Possible. Definitely something I’ll look at. But if so, we have an even bigger problem because that means the SVR has penetrated our data system.”
“You still haven’t been able to trace it back?”
“If I’d been able to trace it back, I’d have a lead, now, wouldn’t I?” Axel said irritably. “Hell, no, whoever did it was genius. And when we catch him—or her—we’ll likely recruit the bastard.” He sounded aggrieved at the prospect; even when he was younger, negotiation had never been his first choice. He preferred to hammer home his point, go for the most drastic punishment.
“Or the person you have looking for the hack is the hacker,” Bo couldn’t resist pointing out, knowing her comment would drive him crazy.
The absolute silence on the phone told her she’d guessed right. His brain had flipped into squirrel mode, worrying the possibility from every angle.
Morgan lifted his brows at her and she smirked, shrugging. “You could be right,” he murmured. “Nothing is impossible.”
“Shit!” Axel’s expletive was sharp. “I’ll have to go out of house, have someone else recheck my guy. I can’t see him being a bad actor. Of course I did some deep checking on him, but if he’s good enough to be the hacker, he could build any background he wanted.”
“Okay,” Morgan said. “While you’re doing that, I say we move forward. I’ve been thinking.”
“Go on.”
“We have nothing on them. Even if you can tie Yartsev to Rykov, prove that he hired the shooter, and even if you can prove it was Yartsev on the boat with the Kingsleys—which I don’t think you can because his craftwork will be too good—we still have no proof that the Kingsleys did anything wrong or that they knew about the hit being put out on me.”
After a pause Axel said, “True. I’m listening.”
“But we can bait them into coming after me again, which is essentially what you’d planned to do anyway. You expected them to spring the trap when they were looking for my location, but they’re too smart for that because they expect a trap from you.”
“I’m too good at my job,” Axel said sourly.
Bo rolled her eyes but suppressed a snort.
“So I need to go to them,” Morgan said.
There was a short pause, then Axel said interestedly, “What’s on your mind?”
“Just thinking out loud here, but maybe give me a medical discharge, or just put in my files that I’ll need to be reevaluated due to physical problems. Whatever. I initiate the contact with the Kingsleys, let them know I remember, say I need money.”
“Blackmail.”
“Without actually saying it.”
“That’s entrapment.”
“I’m not a law officer.”
“Yeah, but now you’re breaking the law and they still haven’t.”
“They will when they come after me and try to kill me again. Do you honestly think they’d be willing to quietly make blackmail payments for the foreseeable future?”
“No. A politician like Kingsley couldn’t let that kind of threat hang over her head.”
The three of them were silent as the possibilities and probabilities ran through their heads. Bo stood quietly beside Morgan, half of her wanting to shriek at him for putting himself in danger again and the other half knowing he had to do whatever he could to resolve the situation. She put that aside and tried to think strategically. If the Kingsleys—or, more likely, another hired killer—came after Morgan, they’d be coming here because Morgan was right, and here at her isolated home would logically be the best place for any attempt on him to happen. Any halfway competent killer would figure that out in short order.
But . . . what if the killer used a rifle? That would be almost impossible to defend against. There were a lot of hills surrounding her house on which a patient assassin could silently wait for a good shot. Her blood ran cold as the truth of that thought sank deep into her bones.
There was no way to know whether or not Morgan would ever have noticed the significance of the blue shirt if she hadn’t questioned him, but her actions had definitely set events into motion. If anything happened to him, it would be her fault, and she didn’t know if she could live with that.
Therefore, she had to do whatever she could to keep that from happening.
Morgan said, “Let me know when you’ve doctored my file and rechecked your computer geek.” He disconnected the call, turned around, and pulled her down on his lap. “Stop,” he commanded.
“Stop what?”
“Fretting. Blaming yourself.”
She leaned against him, let herself enjoy how big he was so that their faces were on a level rather than her sitting above him; enjoying, also, how attuned to her he was. That in itself was a revelation because she’d always worked so hard at keeping herself hidden. But Morgan saw her, and apparently liked what he saw. “Fretting is a natural part of the situation,” she said. “And, yes, I have part of the responsibility for whatever the outcome is. If it works, yay me. If it doesn’t . . .” To her dismay, her voice wobbled, and she had to blink fast to vanquish the tears that threatened. She firmed her mouth and lifted her chin, refusing to give in. What they had to face was best done with logic and preparation, not tears and emotion. She’d save those for afterward.
A small scowl pulled his dark brows together. “Listen. Part of my job is anticipating all the possibles. If I fail at that, it’s on me. But there are things we can do. For instance, whatever phone I use to contact the Kingsleys, Axel can transfer the trigger to that number so when they trace the phone’s location, we’ll know to start looking for movement. Likewise, now he knows to start tracing all their calls, to put eyes on them, so if they have a personal meet with anyone we’ll know it.”
It was reassuring to know they wouldn’t simply be sitting there waiting for someone to take a shot at him.
“What if the Kingsleys are innocent?” she asked. “What if it is the Russian—Yartsev—and he’s betraying Russia to us, via the Kingsleys?”
“That’s the best possible scenario. If that’s the case, as soon as I contact the Kingsleys, they’ll have Homeland Security on me so fast my ass will be in jail before I can blink twice. That’s when Axel will have to come to my rescue before I get locked in some hole.”
Her horror must have shown on her face because she didn’t trust Axel to do anything. Morgan chuckled and said, “It won’t come to that. I’ll be held while my story is checked, sure, and there’ll have to be some high-level powwows, but then the various agencies will get things settled. I have a top-secret security clearance and was reinvestigated just last year; that’ll settle down most of the dust.”
“But even if that’s the best possible situation, Yartsev still tried to kill you. Wouldn’t the Kingsleys have told him what you do, who you are?”
“They should have, if that were the
“Why wouldn’t he try again?”
“I imagine the issue would be discussed with him,” he said drily. “But that’s all supposition. Until I know for certain they aren’t involved, I’m going on the assumption that the Kingsleys are in this up to their asses. In the meantime, we’ll start making preparations and taking precautions.”
“Such as?”
“Perimeter security. I like what’s already been done, but there can be more, and Axel can find the budget to pay for it. FLIR systems—that’s forward-looking infrared cameras, which will spot body heat—wireless transmitters, an escape route. I can get one put in fairly fast if you don’t mind tearing up a section of the floor. Beef up the windows. Of course, the best thing would be for you and Tricks to stay in town—”
“No,” she said fiercely, then immediately realized no way would she let Tricks stay in any danger zone. “Well, Tricks can stay with Daina. But if I’m not going about my routine, wouldn’t that be a heads-up to anyone watching?”
“Only if they’ve been watching long enough to know your routine.”
“I don’t care about the floor,” she said, ignoring his point because she wasn’t about to give ground on hers. “Tear it up. Start tomorrow.”
“We don’t have to move quite that fast. The clock won’t start ticking until I contact the Kingsleys, and I won’t do that until Axel doctors my file with the fake medical disability and finishes checking out his hack-hunter. You burned his ass with that one,” he said, grinning.
“And now I’ve caused a delay because he’s paranoid.”
“It isn’t paranoia if it’s real. The world he lives in, it’s real. I know he’s checked his guy out so thoroughly he probably knows the placement of every freckle, and I figure the guy’s clean, but Axel will take a hard look at him again.” He paused. “I suggest we bring Jesse into the loop. We may need his help, his and the rest of your officers. I want to do everything I can to minimize any danger to you and the town.”