Diamond Bay Read online

  That would be the mysterious “Charles.” Sabin had known who had to be behind things from the moment he had recognized the red-haired woman, Noelle, on the boat. He had known it would be only a matter of time until they locked horns again. Charles was the head of an international terrorist organization that had been growing bolder and more challenging, while at the same time Charles himself had kept at a safe distance, protected by a web of technicalities and politics. Now he had come out into the open, to get Sabin. But he’d made one big mistake: his first attempt hadn’t succeeded, and now Sabin knew that his own organization had been infiltrated. Charles couldn’t afford to stop the search until Sabin was found, dead or alive.

  When Kell didn’t ask any questions Rachel shrugged and went into the bathroom to take off her makeup and change into her nightgown. His silence was unnerving; he probably used it as a weapon, to shake people off-balance and put them on the defensive. Well, she wasn’t one of his minions; she was a woman who loved him.

  Five minutes later she left the bathroom, her clothing draped over her arm. Sabin was sitting on the side of the bed, taking off his shoes. He kept his eyes on her while she hung her things in the closet, not looking away even when he stood to unzip his jeans.

  “The nightgown is a waste of time,” he drawled. “You might as well pull it off and put it back in that drawer.”

  Startled, Rachel looked around at him. He was standing by the bed, his hands on the fly of his jeans, and he was watching her with the concentrated attention with which a cat watches a mouse. The air around her suddenly sizzled with tension, and her throat went dry, forcing her to swallow. Slowly he slid down the zipper on his jeans, the denim spreading open in a vee to reveal bronzed skin and the vertical line of downy hair that arrowed down his lower abdomen into the thicker growth of hair just visible in his opened pants. The thick bulge beneath the denim clearly demonstrated his intention.

  Her body leaped into immediate response, her heart beating faster and her breath racing in and out of her lungs. It had been like that from the beginning, and she had no more control over it now than she’d had then. He wanted her; that was more than obvious. But he didn’t want to want her, and the knowledge hurt.

  She swallowed again, pushing the closet door shut and leaning against it. “It’s silly,” she said, trying for a wry tone but failing miserably. Her voice was taut and shaking. “After this afternoon you’d think I’d be more comfortable about going to bed with you, but I’m not. I don’t know what…what we have, if anything. I thought it would be clearer, but it isn’t. What do you want from me?” She made a brief, dismissive gesture. “Other than sex.”

  Silently Kell swore. He was so good at holding people away from him that now, when he desperately wanted Rachel as close as he could get her for what time they had left, she still thought he was pushing her away. They had so little time together that the thought of not grabbing for every moment with her was unbearable, and he didn’t know how to make her see that. Perhaps it was better if she didn’t see it; perhaps it would be easier for her if she never knew how tempted he was to forget all his rules and priorities. But he had to have her, had to stockpile memories against the empty days in the future when she wouldn’t be there. Even now she wasn’t playing games, wasn’t trying to hide behind lies to protect her pride. She was so honest that she deserved at least a fraction of the same honesty from him, no matter how it hurt. But the pain wasn’t only hers.

  He looked at her and said, “Everything. That’s what I want. But I can’t have it.”

  She quivered, and tears welled in her eyes. “You know you can have anything you want. All you have to do is reach out and take it.”

  Slowly he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, sliding his fingers under the strap of her nightgown and stroking his rough fingertips over her warm, satiny skin. “At the risk of your life?” he asked in a low voice. “No. I couldn’t live with that.”

  “You make it sound like a concrete fact that anyone close to you is a target. Other agents—”

  “Other agents aren’t me,” he interrupted quietly, his black eyes level on hers. “There are several renegade governments and terrorist groups that have a bounty on my head. Do you think I’d ask any woman to share that sort of life with me?”

  She managed to smile through her tears. “Don’t try to tell me you live like a monk. I know there have been women—”

  “No one close. No one special. No one who could be used or threatened in an attempt to get at me. I’ve tried it, honey. I was married, years ago before it got as bad as it is now. She was wounded in an attempt on my life. Being a smart woman, she got the hell away from me as fast as she could.”

  Not so smart, Rachel thought. She knew that she never would have let that drive her away from him. Her throat was so tight that she was almost choking on her words as she stared up at him, the tears finally overflowing and rolling down her cheeks. “It would be worth it, to be with you,” she whispered. “I’d take the chance.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t let you. I won’t take the chance, not with your life.” With one thumb he rubbed away the tears tracking her face.

  “Isn’t that my decision to make?”

  He moved both his hands up to cup her face, sliding his fingers into her thick straight hair and tilting her face closer to his. “Not when you don’t have any real idea of the danger involved. You pulled a little stint as an investigative reporter, and you notice more than is good for you, but you’re as innocent as a baby when it comes to knowing what my work is really like. There are agents who live fairly normal lives, but I’m not one of them. I’m one of a very small minority. My existence isn’t even admitted publicly.”

  She had gone pale, her face very still. “I know more about the risks involved than you think.”

  “No. You know the movie versions, the cleaned up, romanticized, glamorized crap.”

  Rachel suddenly jerked her head away from his touch, her hands clenched into fists. “You think so?” she rasped, her voice rough with pain. “My husband was killed by a car bomb meant for me. There was nothing cleaned up, romanticized, or glamorous about that. He died in my place! Ask me what I know about someone else paying the price for a risk I chose to take!” Tears began falling again, and she dashed them away, glaring fiercely at him. “Damn you, Kell Sabin! Do you think I want to love you? But at least I’m willing to take the chance, rather than run away from it the way you do!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE WAS CRYING, and it was like taking a punch in the gut to watch her. Rachel simply wasn’t a weepy person, and she was trying hard not to cry, but the tears kept rolling down her face as she faced him, and she kept angrily dashing them away. Slowly Kell reached out and brushed her hair away from her damp face, then eased her into his arms and pressed her head against his uninjured shoulder. “Whatever happens, I can’t risk you,” he said in a low, tortured voice.

  Hearing the finality in his voice, she knew that there was no convincing him otherwise. He would go, and when he did it would be forever. Desperately she clung to him, inhaling deeply to draw the scent of him into her body, her hands trying to memorize the way it felt to touch him. All she had was this.

  He tilted her chin up and bent his head then slanted his mouth over hers, the pressure hard and hungry, even a little angry, because they had so little time when forever wouldn’t suffice. She sighed and opened her mouth to his probing tongue, her fingers flexing on his muscular back, and as always there was that strong, immediate response to him that tightened her breasts and sent twinges of pleasure through her loins. He sensed it, cupping her bottom in his rough hands and lifting her into grinding contact with his own throbbing flesh while his mouth continued to take hers.

  He wanted to wipe out the pain he’d seen in her eyes; he wanted to savor her, take his time with her, as he’d been unable to do that afternoon. Sabin could